Note: References to Enduring Vision refer to Paul Boyer, Clifford Clark, et. al, The Enduring Vision, Volume II, third edition, a textbook in American history

The roots of the American tragedy in Vietnam are actually to be found in the Cold War and the events of 1945-1950. One place to start is with a review of the Cold War and the post-World War II situation in 1945-1946.

COLD WAR LIBERALISM

Bruce Schulman, Godfrey Hodgson and many other historians discuss a concept called Cold War liberalism or the liberal-conservative consensus, that prevailed from the end of World War II (1945) to 1968. In essence, Cold War liberalism was a hybrid. It was an orientation in American politics that joined two things together or combined two things together. These two things were like two sides of a coin, or two halves of something.

One side of Cold War liberalism was a commitment in American domestic affairs and politics to maintain the New Deal liberal welfare state, otherwise known as the general welfare state or the safety net. This meant to keep or retain "social programs" such as Social Security, welfare, unemployment compensation, unions, public housing and farm programs. The purpose of these programs was "to provide for the general welfare of the United States," as stated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States. The phrase "the general welfare" means the greater good of society as a whole, or the common good. Promoting the general welfare is part of what government is for, alongside national defense. Democrats and moderate Republicans were committed to the retention of the so-called liberal welfare state. Extreme right-wing Republicans regarded the New Deal liberal welfare state, especially Social Security and laws recognizing the right of workers to form unions, and minimum wage laws, as socialism. The radical right wanted to repeal the New Deal welfare state or roll it back, but it was too popular with the masses of the American people. Therefore the consensus among liberals and moderates of both parties was to retain the welfare state.

The second side or half of Cold War liberalism was a commitment to resist the spread of communism. This anti-communist policy was called containment. After World War II the United States was alarmed, indeed terrified, of the spread of communism. Although the United States and the Soviet Union had been allies against Hitler's Germany, after 1945 the erstwhile allies became bitter rivals. A new era of Soviet-American hostility, suspicion and antagonism was launched, known as the Cold War. The Cold War became the major orientation of American foreign policy.

A hot war involves a state of hostilities and battles between armies. A cold war refers to "a conflict over ideological differences short of overt military action and the breaking of diplomatic relations" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary).
 
 
 
 

On matters of foreign policy, the two major political parties (Democrats and Republicans) shared opposition to Soviet and other communist expansion. The cornerstone of American foreign policy from about 1945 forward was to CONTAIN or limit the spread of communism worldwide. This policy, authored by George Kennan, in February 1946, was called containment (as in the containment of communism). Dean Acheson, the undersecretary of state for Harry Truman from 1946-1948 and then secretary of state from 1949-1953, was another architect of the policy of containment. John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state for Dwight Eisenhower from 1953-1961, continued the policy; and subsequent administrations have done so as well.

Cold War liberalism is a hybrid politics, widely shared by both Democrats and Republicans until 1968, that combined a commitment to retaining the welfare state (liberalism) in domestic affairs with a commitment to containing world communism (Cold War) in foreign affairs or foreign policy. Putting these two halves together yields Cold War liberalism.

SOVIET-AMERICAN TENSIONS AFTER 1945

Acheson and Truman became alarmed by communist dictatorships or takeovers in eastern Europe, in countries where the Soviet Army had driven out the Nazis. These countries included Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary and Czechoslovakia. There was also a communist insurgency in Greece. Berlin, the old German capital, lay 110 miles inside the Soviet zone, but the city was divided into a Soviet and Allied section. On June 24, 1948 the Soviets established a blockade around Berlin. They would not allow American trucks or vehicles to cross the Soviet zone (East Germany). Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, was trying to use Berlin as a hostage or bargaining chip to extort concessions from the US. The US responded with an airlift, for more than 300 days, to drop food and supplies into the city. Truman also ordered American B-29s to England. These planes could drop atomic weapons on the Soviet Union. Truman hinted that the US would use atomic weapons "if necessary," (if the Soviets fired on American planes flying over East Germany) (Enduring Vision, p. 910). On May 12, 1949 Stalin lifted the blockade.

The Berlin airlift episode convinced the American public that the Soviet Union was an aggressive, bullying nation that sought expansion and world domination, unless stopped by a powerful opponent. The Soviets sought to maximize and project their power. The US sought to maximize and project its power. That is what all great and powerful countries do, or have done throughout history. The US felt that the projection of American power served the cause of freedom in the world. What was good for America was best for the world.

To oppose the Soviets, the US and countries in Western Europe created NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in April 1949. The US committed more than a billion dollars to rebuild Western Europe (Marshall Plan, named after Secretary of Defense George Marshall, beginning June 1947). Greece joined NATO in 1952, and the US helped the Greek Government crush the communist insurgency.

The US felt it had won World War II. But Soviet opposition and the spread of communism seemed to rob America of the fruits of victory. Perhaps some Americans felt that victory in war had given us the right to reshape the world in our image. But the Soviets felt otherwise.

THE COMMUNIST TRIUMPH IN CHINA, 1949

In China, civil war continued between the Nationalists (capitalists) led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong (Mao Tse Tung). Mao resorted to guerilla warfare, and in September 1949 the Nationalist forces disintegrated. Although Mao was a Communist, his forces had fought against the Japanese invasion of China before and during World War II. In the eyes of the Chinese masses, Mao was a national hero and a Chinese nationalist who had fought against Japanese aggression and imperialism. The Communists won the civil war, and Chiang Kai-shek's followers fled to the island of Taiwan. The US refused to recognize Mao as the legitimate ruler of China, and not until 1971 did the US announce that it would seek "normalization" of relations with China.

In September 1949 conservative critics crucified Truman and the Democrats, and blamed them for "losing China" to communism, as if somehow China had ever been "ours" to lose. This should have sent a signal that the US did not have the power to control events everywhere in the world all of the time. But Americans, flush from the victory in World War II, expected victory and control and the power to shape world events. It was a delusion of grandeur.

Matters only got worse. Late in September 1949, the American public was horrified to learn that the Soviets had detonated a nuclear bomb. Now the US no longer enjoyed a monopoly over the possession of nuclear weapons. The US (we) could hurt others. But now the Soviets were in a position to hit us back. Conservatives blasted Truman and the Democrats because it seemed that somehow America's military position was weakening.

THE NEW RED SCARE: MCCARTHYISM

Americans suspected that the Soviets could not have developed a nuclear capability on their own, by themselves. Suspicion grew that disloyal American traitors, communists, or spies, had passed American nuclear secrets to the Soviets. A new Red Scare began, with witch hunts to uncover secret enemies dwelling in our midst. Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that communists had wormed their way into government and the State Dept. Congressman Richard Nixon served as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and made a name for himself questioning suspected communists. In 1948 he alleged that Alger Hiss, a Harvard graduate and an employee of the State Dept., had passed State Dept. documents to Whittaker Chambers back in the 1930s; and that Chambers was a former Communist who had served as an agent for the Soviets. Chambers produced microfilm copies of secret State Dept. documents. Hiss denied the charges, but in January 1950 a jury found Hiss guilty of lying under oath (perjury) (see Enduring Vision, Vol. II, p. 922). He was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Nixon rode the anti-communist crusade and gained a reputation as one of the leading anti-communists in America. In 1952 he was selected as the Republican vice presidential running mate.

The Alger Hiss scandal was only the tip of the iceberg. In Britain, a German-born scientist who had worked on the Manhattan Project (which developed the American atomic bomb) was arrested and charged with passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. The man's name was Klaus Fuchs. He confessed. His American accomplice was Harry Gold, who implicated David Greenglass, a machinist who worked at the nuclear laboratory at Los Alamos (Enduring Vision, p. 923). Greenglass fingered his sister and brother-in-law. Their names were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the children of Jewish immigrants. In March 1951 the Rosenbergs were found guilty of conspiring to commit espionage (spying). They were sentenced to death, and electrocuted on June 19, 1953. Subsequent analysis from Soviet document seems to conform that Julius Rosenberg did pass information to the Soviets. The Soviets were spying on the US, and the US was spying on the Soviets, and all of the Great Powers were spying on one another.

Americans were terrified to learn that there were spies in their midst. Fear and suspicion gripped the imagination. Who knew who to trust or not to trust? Ordinary looking Americans might be traitors. However the anti-communism of the 1950s got blown out of proportion, and degenerated into hysteria. Americans began jumping at their own shadows, fearing that a communist bogeyman was lurking under every bed. Worse, the mere accusation that someone was a communist led to people being blacklisted, fired from their jobs, and driven out of the universities. Anybody who criticized American society in any way, or dissented, or was a nonconformist, was labeled a communist. Thus Afro-Americans who criticized racism and segregation were labeled as "communists." The charge that someone was a communist became an easy way to discredit and censor all dissent. It became a convenient excuse to ignore the legitimate grievances of conscientious citizens. Ironically, open dissenters were rarely the true communists. On the contrary, the real communists and spies tried to blend in and "pass" as normal, patriotic Americans so that they could escape detection. By conforming, they avoided suspicion, and carried on spying for decades (consider Aldridge Ames).

NSC-68

In 1950 President Truman established a blue-ribbon committee of State and Defense Dept. officials to conduct a (then) top-secret review of national defense policy. They produced a report called National Security Council 68 (NSC-68). This report emphasized the aggressive intentions for world domination, and the military strength of the Soviet union. To counter this, NSC-68 called for a massive military build-up, a large standing army, and a quadrupling of military spending. Between 1950 and 1953, in part because of the Korean War, military expenditures rose from 5 percent of gross national product to 13 percent of gnp; from one-third of the federal budget to two-thirds (Enduring Vision, p. 911-912).

KOREAN WAR (1950)

In June 1950 the cold war heated up. Communist North Korea attacked South Korea across the 38^th Parallel, and nearly annihilated the South Koreans. The North Koreans had Soviet weapons, although some historians suspect that the North Koreans were acting on their own initiative. President Truman decided that the US could not permit Communist aggression to prevail. He sent Douglas MacArthur to defend South Korea, and MacArthur led UN and American forces in an amphibious landing at Inchon, and hurled the North Koreans back to the border of China. But now China warned that it would not sit idly by and permit the destruction of North Korea and tolerate the presence of American troops on its border. Korea is separated from China by the Yalu River.

MacArthur disregarded the warnings from China. On November 25^th thirty-three Chinese divisions (300,000 troops) crossed the Yalu River and intervened in the war. China was a nation of more than 1 billion people, with an army of millions. Within two weeks the Chinese drove MacArthur back to the 38^th Parallel. By March 1951 fighting stabilized at roughly the pre-war boundary between North and South Korea.

MacArthur wanted to bomb China and risk all-out war. He said there is no substitute for victory. But other generals told Truman that a full-scale war with China would be a mistake. Omar Bradley, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described it as the "wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time and with the wrong enemy." MacArthur publicly demanded that China make peace or be attacked. This contradicted the efforts of the president to get negotiations with China. Truman felt that MacArthur was being insubordinate, and relieved MacArthur of command and replaced him with Matthew Ridgway. The Joint Chiefs feared that the US could not win a ground war against millions of Chinese soldiers unless the US used nuclear weapons. But a war with China would preoccupy the US in Asia and leave the Soviets free to take action in Europe or Iran or Turkey. And the US would be bogged down with China and unable to respond. War with China would be walking into a trap.

Lengthy negotiations followed, ending in an armistice during the Eisenhower administration (July 1953). The US lost 54,000 soldiers and 103,000 wounded or missing (Enduring Vision, p. 914). The stalemate in Korea frustrated the American public, which hoped that General Eisenhower could bring the war to an end. The failure of Truman and the Democrats to produce victory helped the Republicans to win the election in November 1952. In 1952 Eisenhower, the Republican, was elected president. His vice president was the great anti-communist crusader, of Alger Hiss fame, Richard Nixon.

THE COLD WAR MINDSET

The events of 1945-1950 caused many Americans to believe that the US was locked in a deadly struggle with an evil power (the evil empire) that sought world domination. This was a global struggle between freedom and tyranny, between democracy and communism. The US was committed to a struggle against Soviet machinations all around the world. The US saw everything that happened everywhere as a reflection of a monolithic Soviet conspiracy. Everyone was acting as a surrogate or proxy directed from the Kremlin. And if one domino fell then the dominoes next to it would fall, one after another (domino theory). If South Korea fell to communism then Japan and the Philippines would follow. If Iran or Turkey or Greece fell under Soviet influence, the whole Middle East and Africa and India would follow, and US access to oil and copper and raw materials would be jeopardized.

The US did not distinguish carefully between the Soviets and Chinese and Korean communists, or the Vietnamese Communists, or communists in Indonesia or Italy. They were all "bad guys." The US at this point was also not able to understand that some people in some countries were fighting struggles for national independence and self-determination against colonialism and imperialism by European countries such as Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal. The US backed these European countries, and ended up on the "wrong side" of history: on the side of colonialism and imperialism by racist, white supremacist European countries against people of color such as yellow Asian Vietnamese and Indonesians, or black South Africans or Namibians or Congolese or Angolans; and even against Egyptian Arabs and Algerian Arabs and Iranian Moslems. It would take more than thirty years for the US power structure to understand that Third World nationalists of color were primarily concerned with liberating their countries from white European racist colonialism and imperialism, and only secondarily concerned with who was or was not a communist. They were concerned about themselves, not Americans or Russians. Third World nationalists were on THEIR OWN SIDE, not our (the US) side or the Soviet side. Indeed India pushed for a non-aligned movement, that was neutral in the Cold War and not on either the US side or the Soviet side. India was on India's side.

Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats learned some lessons from the Communist victory in China in 1949 and the Korean War.

THE LESSON OF CHINA 1949

LBJ saw that if an administration is perceived as suffering the "loss" of a country to the communist camp, that administration will be condemned for being "weak on communism." To be "weak on communism" was political poison. It was a FATAL political liability. It was the kiss of death. The lesson was, under no circumstances must one "lose" a country to communism, under no circumstances must one appear to be "weak on communism." To do so, or appear so, was political suicide. The Republicans crucified the Democrats for being soft on communism and painted the Democrats into a corner with that accusation. This lesson haunted LBJ for decades to come. LBJ concluded that the American people might forgive a politician for having an affair and cheating on his wide; or embezzling money; or not paying his taxes; or stealing votes; or taking bribes. But there was one thing that Americans would not forgive. They would not forgive a politician who made the country look weak, like it was caving in to foreign countries. That was like touching the electrified "third rail" on the train track.

THE LESSON OF KOREA

The lesson that LBJ and some others learned from the Korean War was that it is a mistake to get sucked into a ground war on the mainland of Asia, and if one sends an army into a nation adjacent to China, CHINA WILL INTERVENE. Korea lay at the northern doorstep of China. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia lay at the southern doorstep of China. If history was any guide, China would respond to an "enemy" army immediately adjacent to its border as an intolerable threat and provocation. In 1954, when the French were losing in Vietnam, they asked for American bombers to provide air support. The British opposed involvement. Eisenhower was reluctant. He consulted Congressional leaders such as LBJ. Given Chinese behavior in Korea, they opposed US involvement in a portion of Vietnam (Dien Bien Phu) close to China. LBJ did not want to risk a repeat of the Korean War in Vietnam. Fear of getting sucked into a war with China would influence the way that LBJ handled the conflict in Vietnam from 1963-1968. It caused LBJ NOT to bomb sites in North Vietnam that were close to China; NOT to bomb the rail lines from China to Vietnam by which the Chinese provided arms and supplies to North Vietnam. Fear of complications with China caused LBJ to fight a limited war in Vietnam in which the US fought with one hand tied behind its back. In retrospect, it becomes clearer that getting involved there in the first place was probably a tragic mistake.

A WORLD OF INSECURITY

In November 1952 the US detonated a hydrogen bomb. Now the US was a step ahead of the Soviets. But American relief at possessing an advantage was short lived. Nine months later the Soviets detonated their hydrogen bomb (Enduring Vision, p. 911).

FINAL COMMENT FOR THIS LECTURE

William Faulkner once said, to paraphrase, that "the past is never dead. It isn't even the past." He meant that the past lives on in the present because the past continues to influence the present and future. The past has consequences.

History (the past) always casts a shadow. History is a process of learning from both the successes and the failures (mistakes) of the past. It is not a crime to make mistakes--only to fail to learn from those mistakes; and to keep making the same mistake over and over again. Great nations seek to exert their power. In doing so, and sometimes experiencing failure, they learn the limits of their power. With the knowledge of limits comes wisdom…and knowing the difference between what one can do and what one cannot do; and what one can do well and what is beyond one's skill and ability. (MJ) This is like the Greek legend of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun with his wings of wax (which melted and he fell into the sea and drowned). Sometimes mortals must learn the hard way… that we are not God. To believe that one can do what only the gods can do, or to "play God," is a species of deadly pride and vanity called hubris (by the Greeks). Nations too can suffer from hubris. American hubris (and the Cold War) would eventually lead our country down the road to a place called Vietnam, and the downfall of Lyndon B. Johnson. Vietnam is a crucially important lesson for American involvement in all nonconventional wars. And the fate of Lyndon Johnson is a critical lesson for all subsequent American presidents faced with a decision of whether or not to commit American troops abroad.