New Frontiers: Politics and Social Change in the 1960s - Document Overview
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The election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960 ushered in a decade of energetic idealism that bore fruit in the founding of the Peace Corps, the War on Poverty, and Great Society programs of federal assistance to the poor. The 1960s also witnessed a dramatic new phase of the civil rights movement. Kennedy was one of the first political leaders to recognize the vast number of people not only mired in poverty but also hidden from public awareness. And, even though Kennedy himself was reluctant to assault racial injustice in the segregated South because of the political clout of southern Democrats, events eventually forced him and his successor, Lyndon Johnson, to make civil rights a primary concern.
During the 1950s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an ordained black minister, emerged as the heroic and charismatic leader of the national civil rights movement. He fastened upon a brilliant strategy—nonviolent civil disobedience—to gain the attention and sympathy of a complacent nation. Through boycotts, marches, sit-ins, and other forms of protest, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which he founded, forced authorities to confront the injustices of racism. His passionate commitment and uplifting rhetoric helped excite national concern, and his efforts led directly to major new legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in employment and public facilities, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed literacy tests and other measures used by local registrars to deny blacks access to the ballot. In 1964 King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Yet as time passed the civil rights movement began to fragment. The legal and political gains did not translate into immediate economic and social advances. Black neighborhoods continued to be plagued by crime and drug addiction, fatherless households, and intense frustration and alienation. On August 11, 1965, only five days after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Watts, a black neighborhood in Los Angeles, erupted in a chaos of looting, arson, and violence. During the next three years, 300 more race riots occurred in inner-city communities across the nation. Over 200 people were killed, 7,000 injured, and 40,000 arrested. For many urban blacks outside the South, the mainstream civil rights movement had brought little tangible improvement in their lives. Most African Americans lived not in the rural South but in inner-city neighborhoods across the country, in major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Newark, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Blacks living in urban ghettos faced chronic poverty, unemployment, decaying housing and schools, and police brutality.
Young black activists outside the South grew impatient with Dr. King's leadership and his commitment to integration within the larger white society. Black militants such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown rejected the non-violent civil disobedience promoted by King and the SCLC. For them, "Black Power" became the rallying cry in the mid-1960s.
The concept of "Black Power" grew out of the tradition of black nationalism—the belief that people with African roots share a distinctive culture and destiny. It fed upon the seething discontent with the pace of social change within the black ghettos of urban America. Malcolm X was the most compelling proponent of black nationalism. A convert to the Black Muslim (the Nation of Islam) faith led by Elijah Muhammad, he urged African Americans to organize themselves to take control of their communities "by any means necessary," including violence. Unlike King and the other leaders of SCLC, Malcolm X was not interested in promoting integration. "Our enemy is the white man," he exclaimed. His goal was a separate, self-reliant black community within the United States. Yet during late 1964 Malcolm X began to moderate his stance. He broke with the Black Muslims and began to talk of racial cooperation. His defection cost him his life. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot and killed by three Black Muslim assassins.
The militance displayed by Malcolm X survived among the younger proponents of "Black Power." During the summer of 1966 Stokely Carmichael led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) away from its original commitment to peaceful social change. His successor, H. Rap Brown, told the members of SNCC to grab their guns, burn the cities, and shoot the "honky to death." A group of young black militants in California led by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale shared these strong feelings and organized the Black Panther Party to engage in guerrilla violence against white authorities.
During each summer between 1965 and 1968, urban America was aflame with racial rioting. In 1967, for example, 87 people were killed and over 16,000 arrested. The violence prompted President Johnson in 1967 to appoint a special National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders headed by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois to determine the causes of the racial turmoil. The Kerner Commission Report appeared in 1968. It called for a "compassionate, massive and sustained" commitment to racial equality and social justice "backed by the resources of the most powerful and richest nation on this earth." Unfortunately only a month after the report appeared, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. His tragic death sparked another outbreak of racial rioting across the country.
By the end of the 1960s the quest for racial equality had become interwoven with other powerful social currents, including the antiwar protests and the feminist movement. The combined energies of these and other crusades coupled with the conservative backlash they provoked threatened to unravel American society by the end of the 1960s.
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Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement (1965), Casey Hayden and Mary King
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The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) attracted hundreds of idealistic young male and female activists, both black and white. Yet for all of the movement's commitment to racial equality, it failed to practice gender equality. The young men who led SNCC retained conventional notions of male superiority. They expected the women in the organization to cook meals, take notes, and defer to the men. Once, when asked about the role of women volunteers in SNCC, Stokely Carmichael replied that the "only position for women in SNCC is prone." Two white female activists, Casey Hayden and Mary King, wrote memos in 1964 and 1965 detailing their frustrations at the failure of the civil rights movement to recogniz issues related to women's concerns. They and others would eventually leave the civil rights crusade and helped organize the modern feminist movement.
The average white person finds it difficult to understand why the Negro resents being called "boy," or being thought of as "musical" and athletic," because the average white person doesn't realize that he assumes he is superior. And naturally he doesn't understand the problem of paternalism. So too the average SNCC worker1
finds it difficult to discuss the woman problem because of the assumption of male superiority. Assumptions of male superiority are as widespread and deep-rooted and every much as crippling to the woman as the assumptions of white supremacy are to the Negro. Consider why it is in SNCC that women who are competent, qualified, and experienced are automatically assigned to the "female" kinds of jobs such as: typing, desk work, telephone work, filing, library work, cooking, and the assistant kind of administrative work but rarely the "executive" kind.
The woman in SNCC is often in the same position as that token Negro hired in a corporation. The management thinks that it has done its bit. Yet, every day the Negro bears an atmosphere, attitudes, and actions which are tinged with condescension and paternalism, the most telling of which are seen when he is not promoted as the equally or less skilled whites are. . . .
It needs to be made known that many women in the movement are not "happy and contented" with their status. It needs to be made known that much talent and experience are being wasted by this movement, when women are not given jobs commensurate with their abilities. It needs to be known that just as Negroes were the crucial factor in the economy of the cotton South, so too in SNCC, women are the crucial factor that keeps the movement running on a day-to-day basis. Yet they are not given equal say-so when it comes to day-to-day decision making.
What can be done? Probably nothing right away. Most men in this movement are probably too threatened by the possibility of serious discussion on this subject. Perhaps this is because they have recently broken away from a matriarchal framework under which they may have grown up. Then, too, many women are as unaware and insensitive to this subject as men, as there are many Negroes who don't understand they are not free or who want to be part of white America. They don't understand that they have to give up their souls and stay in their place to be accepted. So, too, many women, in order to be accepted by men, on men's terms, give themselves up to that caricature of what a woman is—unthinking, pliable, an ornament to please the man.
Maybe the only thing that can come out of this paper is discussion—amidst the laughter—but still discussion. . . . And maybe some women will begin to recognize day-to-day discriminations. And maybe sometime in the future the whole of the women in this movement will become so alert as to force the rest of the movement to stop the discrimination and start the slow process of changing values and ideas so that all of us gradually come to understand that this is no more a man's world than it is a white world.
* * *
We've talked a lot, to each other and to some of you, about our own and other women's problems in trying to live in our personal lives and in our work as independent and creative people. In these conversations we've found what seem to be recurrent ideas or themes. Maybe we can look at these things many of us perceive, often as a result of insights learned from the movement:
Sex and caste: There seem to be many parallels that can be drawn between treatment of Negroes and treatment of women in our society as a whole. But in particular, women we've talked to who work in the movement seem to be caught up in a common-law caste system that operates, sometimes subtly, forcing them to work around or outside hierarchical structures of power which may exclude them. Women seem to be placed in the same position of assumed subordination in personal situations too. It is a caste system which, at its worst, uses and exploits women.
This is complicated by several facts, among them: 1) The caste system is not institutionalized by law (women have the right to vote, to sue for divorce, etc.); 2) Women can't withdraw from the situation (à la nationalism) or overthrow it; 3) There are biological differences (even though those biological differences are usually discussed or accepted without taking present and future technology into account so we probably can't be sure what these differences mean). Many people who are very hip to the implications of the racial caste system, even people in the movement, don't seem to be able to see the sexual-caste system and if the question is raised they respond with: "That's the way it's supposed to be. There are biological differences." Or with other statements which recall a white segregationist confronted with integration.
Women and problems of work: The caste-system perspective dictates the roles assigned to women in the movement, and certainly even more to women outside the movement. Within the movement, questions arise in situations ranging from relationships of women organizers to men in the community, to who cleans the freedom house, to who holds leadership positions, to who does secretarial work, and to who acts as spokesman for groups. Other problems arise between women with varying degrees of awareness of themselves as being as capable as men but held back from full participation, or between women who see themselves as needing more control of their work than other women demand. And there are problems with relationships between white women and black women.
Women and personal relations with men: Having learned from the movement to think radically about the personal worth and abilities of people whose role in society had gone unchallenged before, a lot of women in the movement have begun trying to apply those lessons to their own relations with men. Each of us probably has her own story of the various results, and of the internal struggle occasioned by trying to break out of very deeply learned fears, needs, and self-perceptions, and of what happens when we try to replace them with concepts of people and freedom learned from the movement and organizing.
Institutions: Nearly everyone has real questions about those institutions which shape perspectives on men and women: marriage, childrearing patterns, women's (and men's) magazines, etc. People are beginning to think about and even to experiment with new forms in these areas.
Men's reactions to the questions raised here: A very few men seem to feel, when they hear conversations involving these problems, that they have a right to be present and participate in them, since they are so deeply involved. At the same time, very few men can respond nondefensively, since the whole idea is either beyond their comprehension or threatens and exposes them. The usual response is laughter. That inability to see the whole issue as serious, as the straitjacketing of both sexes, and as societally determined often shapes our own response so that we learn to think in their terms about ourselves and to feel silly rather than trust our inner feelings. The problems we're listing here, and what others have said about them, are therefore largely drawn from conversations among women only—and that difficulty in establishing dialogue with men is a recurring theme among people we've talked to.
Lack of community for discussion: Nobody is writing, or organizing or talking publicly about women in any way that reflects the problems that various women in the movement come across and which we've tried to touch above. . . .
The reason we want to try to open up dialogue is mostly subjective. Working in the movement often intensifies personal problems, especially, if we start trying to apply things we're learning there to our personal lives. Perhaps we can start to talk with each other more openly than in the past and create a community of support for each other so we can deal with ourselves and others with integrity and can therefore keep working.
Objectively, the chances seem nil that we could start a movement based on anything as distant to general American thought as a sex-caste system. Therefore, most of us will probably want to work full time on problems such as war, poverty, race. The very fact that the country can't face, much less deal with, the questions we're raising means that the movement2 is one place to look for some relief. Real efforts at dialogue within the movement and with whatever liberal groups, community women, or students might listen are justified. That is, all the problems between men and women and all the problems of women functioning in society as equal human beings are among the most basic that people face. We've talked in the movement about trying to build a society which would see basic human problems (which are now seen as private troubles), as public problems and would try to shape institutions to meet human needs rather than shaping people to meet the needs of those with power. To raise questions like those above illustrates very directly that society hasn't dealt with some of its deepest problems and opens discussion of why that is so. (In one sense, it is a radicalizing question that can take people beyond legalistic solutions into areas of personal and institutional change.) The second objective reason we'd like to see discussion begin is that we've learned a great deal in the movement and perhaps this is one area where a determined attempt to apply ideas we've learned there can produce some new alternatives.
1. I.e., male. (Return to text)
2. Civil rights movement. (Return to text)
[From Mary King,
Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Morrow, 1987), pp. 568–69, 571–74. Copyright 1987 by Mary Elizabeth King. With per-mission of Gerald McCaulley Agency, Inc.]
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The Vietnam Conflict - Document Overview
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During the 1960s the United States became mired in an expanding conflict in Vietnam. It proved to be America's longest and most controversial war. Some 2.5 million men and women served in Vietnam, and over 58,000 lost their lives. American intervention, which finally ended in 1973, cost billions of dollars and cost Lyndon Johnson the presidency. It fractured the national consensus about foreign policy that had existed since 1945, eroded morale within the military, and spawned massive protests and violence at home. In the end South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese Communists in 1975. Yet for all of its controversy and tragedy, the Vietnam War seemed the logical, if problematic, course of action for American policymakers.
When John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in 1961, he inherited an expanding American commitment in Indochina. His two predecessors, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, had both insisted that the United States must help prevent the spread of Communism in Vietnam. Otherwise, the rest of Asia would fall like "dominoes" to the Communist menace. So the United States provided massive amounts of weapons, food, and money to prop up the corrupt regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. Diem, in power since 1954, continued to resist American demands that he reform the political and economic structure to generate public support for his regime. By mid-1963, students and Buddhists were protesting in the streets in large numbers, and some monks were immolating themselves to draw world attention to the situation. Kennedy responded by sending American military "advisors" to shore up the government and the military. But the situation continued to deteriorate.
In the fall of 1963 Kennedy's advisors decided that Diem must go, and they encouraged South Vietnamese generals to stage a coup. In November they killed Diem and his brother. Unfortunately, Diem's successors were no more effective in quelling public discontent. The Viet Cong took advantage of the political instability and stepped up their attacks. By the time Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in Vietnam.
Lyndon Johnson thus inherited a chaotic political and military situation in South Vietnam. His choices were daunting: either abandon the South Vietnamese to the Communist insurgency or assume responsibility for the military defense of the country. He feared that a deepening American commitment in Southeast Asia would destroy the "woman I really loved—the Great Society." But he also did not want to be accused of "losing" Southeast Asia to Communism as Truman had been accused of "losing" China. "I am not going to lose Vietnam," he resolved. "I am not going to be the president who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went."
In early 1965 Johnson and his advisors made the fateful decisions to initiate a major American bombing campaign against Communist North Vietnam and to send American combat forces to South Vietnam. By the end of the year there were 200,000 troops in Vietnam, and the number steadily increased thereafter, reaching a peak of 536,000 by the end of 1968. The escalating war generated intense political criticism and social protests. People questioned both the integrity of the South Vietnamese government and the credibility of American military claims that the war was going well.
In late January 1968 the war effort suffered a major setback when the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies launched the Tet Offensive, a well-coordinated series of attacks on South Vietnamese and American installations throughout the country. Even though an American counterattack eventually devastated the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive's initial successes seemed to contradict the Johnson administration's claim that there was "light at the end of the tunnel."
In early 1968 antiwar Democrats, led by Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy, challenged Johnson for the Democratic nomination, and in March he announced his decision not to run for reelection. Vice President Hubert Humphrey eventually gained the nomination, but he was narrowly defeated by Republican Richard Nixon. Once in office, Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, instituted the "Vietnamization" of the war. This entailed a phased withdrawal of American ground forces coupled with an intensified bombing campaign to buy time so that the South Vietnamese military could assume greater responsibility for the fighting. At the same time, American diplomats began meeting in Paris with their Viet Cong and North Vietnamese counterparts to negotiate an end to the war. But the negotiations dragged on with little sign of progress, and the fighting continued unabated.
In January 1973, only days after Nixon unleashed a furious bombardment of North Vietnamese cities, the negotiators in Paris reached an agreement to end the fighting and exchange prisoners. By March of that year the last remaining American forces left Vietnam. Nixon announced that the South Vietnamese would be able to defend themselves and maintain their independence as long as the American government continued to provide military supplies and financial assistance. Yet in April 1975 North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, and the Communists took complete control of the country. In the midst of defeat and the onset of totalitarian rule, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese "boat people" fled the country, seeking asylum wherever they could find it, with many of them eventually settling in the United States. America's longest and costliest war (over $150 billion) was over, but the wounds persisted for years.
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The Rusk McNamara Report (1961)
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Soon after taking office in March 1961, President John F. Kennedy dispatched a series of "fact-finding" missions to South Vietnam to assess the situation and to recommend a plan of action. One of the most important of these analyses was conducted by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
1. United States' National Interests in South Viet-Nam.
The deteriorating situation in South Viet-Nam requires attention to the nature and scope of United States national interests in that country. The loss of South Viet-Nam to Communism would involve the transfer of a nation of 20 million people from the free world to the Communism bloc. The loss of South Viet-Nam would make pointless any further discussion about the importance of Southeast Asia to the free world; we would have to face the near certainty that the remainder of Southeast Asia and Indonesia would move to a complete accommodation with Communism, if not formal incorporation with the Communist bloc. The United States, as a member of SEATO, has commitments with respect to South Viet-Nam under the Protocol to the SEATO Treaty. Additionally, in a formal statement at the conclusion session of the 1954 Geneva Conference, the United States representative stated that the United States "would view any renewal of the aggression . . . with grave concern and seriously threatening international peace and security."
The loss of South Viet-Nam to Communism would not only destroy SEATO but would undermine the credibility of American commitments elsewhere. Further, loss of South Viet-Nam would stimulate bitter domestic controversies in the United States and would be seized upon by extreme elements to divide the country and harass the Administration.
* * *
3. The United States' Objective in South Viet-Nam.
The United States should commit itself to the clear objective of preventing the fall of South VietNam to Communist [sic].1 The basic means for accomplishing this objective must be to put the Government of South Viet-Nam into a position to win its own war against the Guerrillas. We must insist that that Government itself take the measures necessary for that purpose in exchange for large-scale United States assistance in the military, economic and political fields. At the same time we must recognize that it will probably not be possible for the GVN to win this war as long as the flow of men and supplies from North Viet-Nam continues unchecked and the guerrillas enjoy a safe sanctuary in neighboring territory.
We should be prepared to introduce United States combat forces if that should become necessary for success. Dependent upon the circumstances, it may also be necessary for United States forces to strike at the source of the aggression in North Viet-Nam.
4. The Use of United States Forces in South Viet-Nam.
The commitment of United States forces to South Viet-Nam involves two different categories: (A) Units of modest size required for the direct support of South Viet-Namese military effort, such as communications, helicopter and other forms of airlift, reconnaissance aircraft, naval patrols, intelligence units, etc., and (B) larger organized units with actual or potential direct military mission. Category (A) should be introduced as speedily as possible. Category (B) units pose a more serious problem in that they are much more significant from the point of view of domestic and international political factors and greatly increase the probabilities of Communist block escalation. Further, the employment of United States combat forces (in the absence of Communist bloc escalation) involves a certain dilemma: if there is a strong South-Viet-Namese effort, they may not be needed; if there is not such an effort, United States forces could not accomplish their mission in the midst of an apathetic or hostile population. Under present circumstances, therefore, the question of injecting United States and SEATO combat forces should in large part be considered as a contribution to the morale of the South Viet-Namese in their own effort to do the principal job themselves. . . . In the light of the foregoing, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense recommend that:
- We now take the decision to commit ourselves to the objective of preventing the fall of South Viet-Nam to Communism and that, in doing so, we recognize that the introduction of United States and other SEATO forces may be necessary to achieve this objective. (However, if it is necessary to commit outside forces to achieve the foregoing objective our decision to introduce United States forces should not be contingent upon unanimous SEATO agreement thereto.)
- The Department of Defense be prepared with plans for the use of United States forces in South Viet-Nam under one or more of the following purposes:
- (a) Use of a significant number of United States forces to signify United States determination to defend Viet-Nam and to boost South Viet-Nam morale.
- (b) Use of substantial United States forces to assist in suppressing Viet Cong insurgency short of engaging in detailed counter-guerrilla operations but including relevant operations in North Viet-Nam.
- (c) Use of United States forces to deal with the situation if there is organized Communist military intervention. . . .
1. Editorial insertion. (Return to text)
[From Neil Sheehan et al., eds.,
The Pentagon Papers as Published by the New York Times (New York: Bantam, 1971), pp. 150–53.]
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Peace Without Conquest (1965), Lyndon B. Johnson
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. . . Over this war, and all Asia, is the deepening shadow of Communist China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, attacked India, and been condemned by the United Nations for aggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Vietnam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purpose.
Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. We have helped to build, and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence. And I intend to keep our promise.
To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemy, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.
We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of American commitment, the value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war.
We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Vietnam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Southeast Asia, as we did in Europe, in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."
There are those who say that all our effort there will be futile, that China's power is such it is bound to dominate all Southeast Asia. But there is no end to that argument until all the nations of Asia are swallowed up.
There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. We have it for the same reason we have a responsibility for the defense of freedom in Europe. World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.
Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves, only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.
We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.
In recent months, attacks on South Vietnam were stepped up. Thus it became necessary to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.
We do this in order to slow down aggression.
We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years and with so many casualties.
And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam, and all who seek to share their conquest, of a very simple fact:
We will not be defeated.
We will not grow tired.
We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement. . . .
Once this is clear, then it should also be clear that the only path for reasonable men is the path of peaceful settlement.
Such peace demands an independent South Vietnam securely guaranteed and able to shape its own relationships to all others, free from outside interference, tied to no alliance, a military base for no other country.
These are the essentials of any final settlement.
We will never be second in the search for such a peaceful settlement in Vietnam.
There may be many ways to this kind of peace: in discussion or negotiation with the governments concerned; in large groups or in small ones; in the reaffirmation of old agreements or their strengthening with new ones.
We have stated this position over and over again fifty times and more, to friend and foe alike. And we remain ready, with this purpose, for unconditional discussions.
And until that bright and necessary day of peace we will try to keep conflict from spreading. We have no desire to see thousands die in battle, Asians or Americans. We have no desire to devastate that which the people of North Vietnam have built with toil and sacrifice. We will use our power with restraint and with all the wisdom we can command. But we will use it. . . .
We will always oppose the effort of one nation to conquer another nation.
We will do this because our own security is at stake.
But there is more to it than that. For our generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make it come true.
For centuries, nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to make it so.
For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle. But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.
For all existence most men have lived in poverty, threatened by hunger. But we dream of a world where all are fed and charged with hope. And we will help to make it so.
The ordinary men and women of North Vietnam and South Vietnam—of China and India—of Russia and America—are brave people. They are filled with the same proportions of hate and fear, of love and hope. Most of them want the same things for themselves and their families. Most of them do not want their sons ever to die in battle, or see the homes of others destroyed. . . .
Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep, I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country? Have I done everything I can to help unite the world, to try to bring peace and hope to all the peoples of the world? Have I done enough?
Ask yourselves that question in your homes and in this hall tonight. Have we done all we could? Have we done enough? . . .
[From
Department of State Bulletin, April 26, 1965 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940–).]
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A Compromise Solution in Vietnam (1965), George Ball
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Undersecretary of State George Ball was one of the few members of the Johnson administration who was openly skeptical of the escalating American military intervention in South Vietnam. In this memorandum he outlined his assessment of the situation and explained his opposition to a deepening American commitment.
(1) A Losing War: The South Vietnamese is losing the war to the Viet Cong. No one can assure you that we can beat the Viet Cong or even force them to the conference table on our terms, no matter how many hundred thousand white, foreign (U.S.) troops we deploy.
No one has demonstrated that a white ground force of whatever size can win a guerrilla war—which is at the same time a civil war between Asians—in jungle terrain in the midst of a population that refuses cooperation to the white forces (and the South Vietnamese) and thus provides a great intelligence advantage to the other side. . . .
(2) The Question to Decide: Should we limit our liabilities in South Vietnam and try to find a way out with minimal long-term costs? The alternative—no matter what we may wish it to be—is almost certainly a protracted war involving an open-ended commitment of U.S. forces, mounting U.S. casualties, no assurance of a satisfactory solution, and a serious danger of escalation at the end of the road.
(3) Need for a Decision Now: So long as our forces are restricted to advising and assisting the South Vietnamese, the struggle will remain a civil war between Asian peoples. Once we deploy substantial numbers of troops in combat it will become a war between the U.S. and a large part of the population of South Vietnam, organized and directed from North Vietnam and backed by the resources of both Moscow and Peiping.
The decision you face now, therefore, is crucial. Once large numbers of U.S. troops arecommitted to direct combat, they will begin to take heavy casualties in a war they are ill-equipped to fight in a non-cooperative if not downright hostile countryside.
Once we suffer large casualties, we will have started a well-nigh irreversible process. Our involvement will be so great that we cannot—without national humiliation—stop short of achieving our complete objectives. Of the two possibilities I think humiliation would be more likely than the achievement of our objectives—even after we have paid terrible costs. . . .
[From George W. Ball, "A Compromise Solution in South Vietnam," in Neil Sheehan et al., comp.,
The Pentagon Papers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 2:615–17.]
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A North Vietnamese View of American Intervention (1965), Le Duan
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The North Vietnamese leaders engaged in their own analysis of the conflict in Vietnam and the prospect of massive American military intervention. In July 1965 Le Duan, a prominent official in the North Vietnamese Communist party, offered his assessment of America's involvement in the region to a group of Communist leaders.
We know that the U.S. sabotaged the Geneva Agreement and encroached on South Vietnam in order to achieve three objectives:
- To turn the South into a colony of a new type.
- To turn the South into a military base, in order to prepare to attack the North and the Socialist bloc.
- To establish a South VietnamÐCambodiaÐLaos defensive line in order to prevent the socialist revolution from spreading through Southeast Asia.
At present, we fight the U.S. in order to defeat their first two objectives to prevent them from turning the South into a new-type colony and military base. We do not yet aim at their third objective, essentially to divide the ranks of the imperialist and to make other imperialists disagree with the U.S. in broadening the war in Vietnam and also to attract the support of other democratic and independent countries for our struggle in the South.
Our revolutionary struggle in the South has the character of a conflict between the two camps in fact, but we advocate not making that conflict grow but limiting it in order to concentrate our forces to resolve the contradiction between the people and U.S. imperialism and its lackeys, to complete the national democratic revolution in the whole country. It is for this reason that we put forward the slogan "peace and neutrality" for the South, a flexible slogan to win victory step by step. We are not only determined to defeat the U.S. but must know how to defeat the U.S. in the manner most appropriate to the relation of forces between the enemy and us during each historical phase. . . .
The U.S. rear area is very far away, and American soldiers are "soldiers in chains," who cannot fight like the French, cannot stand the weather conditions, and don't know the battlefield but on the contrary have many weaknesses in their opposition to people's war. If the U.S. puts 300,000–400,000 troops into the South, it will have stripped away the face of its neocolonial policy and revealed the face of an old style colonial invader, contrary to the whole new-style annexation policy of the U.S. in the world at present. Thus, the U.S. will not be able to maintain its power with regard to influential sectors of the United States. If the U.S. itself directly enters the war in the South, it will have to fight for a prolonged period with the people's army of the South,1 with the full assistance of the North and of the Socialist bloc. To fight for a prolonged period is a weakness of U.S. imperialism. The Southern revolution can fight a protracted war, while the U.S. can't, because American military, economic and political resources must be distributed throughout the world. If it is bogged down in one place and can't withdraw, the whole effort will be violently shaken. The U.S. would lose its preeminence in influential sectors at home and create openings for other competing imperialists, and lose the American market. Therefore at present, although the U.S. can immediately send 300,000 to 400,000 troops at once, why must the U.S. do it step by step? Because even if it does send many troops like that, the U.S. would still be hesitant; because that would be a passive policy full of contradictions; because of fear of protracted war, and the even stronger opposition of the American people and the world's people, and even of their allies who would also not support widening the war.
With regard to the North, the U.S. still carries out its war of destruction, primarily by its air force: Besides bombing military targets, bridges and roads to obstruct transport and communications, the U.S. could also indiscriminately bomb economic targets, markets, villages, schools, hospitals, dikes, etc., in order to create confusion and agitation among the people. But the North is determined to fight back at the U.S. invaders in a suitable manner, determined to punish the criminals, day or night, and determined to make them pay the blood debts which they have incurred to our people in both zones. The North will not flinch for a moment before the destructive acts of the U.S., which could grow increasingly with every passing day. The North will not count the cost but will use all of its strength to produce and fight, and endeavor to help the South. For a long time, the Americans have boasted of the strength of their air force and navy but during five to six months of directly engaging in combat with the U.S. in the North, we see clearly that the U.S. cannot develop that strength in relation to the South as well as in relation to the North, but revealed more clearly every day its weak-points. We have shot down more than 400 of their airplanes, primarily with rifles, anti-aircraft guns; [but] the high level of their hatred of the aggressors, and the spirit of determination to defeat the U.S. invaders [are tenacious].2 Therefore, if the U.S. sends 300,000–400,000 troops into the South, and turns special war into direct war in the South, escalating the war of destruction in the North, they still can't hope to avert defeat, and the people of both North and South will still be determined to fight and determined to win.
If the U.S. is still more adventurous and brings U.S. and puppet troops of all their vassal states to attack the North, broadening it into a direct war in the entire country, the situation will then be different. Then it will not be we alone who still fight the U.S. but our entire camp. First the U.S. will not only be doing battle with 17 million people in the North but will also have to battle with hundreds of millions of Chinese people. Attacking the North would mean that the U.S. intends to attack China, because the North and China are two socialist countries linked extremely closely with each other, and the imperialists cannot attack this socialist country without also intending to attack the other. Therefore the two countries would resist together. Could the American imperialists suppress hundreds of millions of people? Certainly they could not. If they reach a stage of desperation, would the U.S. use the atomic bomb? Our camp also has the atomic bomb. The Soviet Union has sufficient atomic strength to oppose any imperialists who wish to use the atomic bomb in order to attack a socialist country, and threaten mankind. If U.S. imperialism uses the atomic bomb in those circumstances they would be committing suicide. The American people themselves would be the ones to stand up and smash the U.S. government when that government used atomic bombs. Would the U.S. dare to provoke war between the two blocks, because of the Vietnam problem; would it provoke a third world war in order to put an early end to the history of U.S. imperialism and of the entire imperialist system in general? Would other imperialist countries, factions in the U.S., and particularly the American people, agree to the U.S. warmongers throwing them into suicide? Certainly, the U.S. could not carry out their intention, because U.S. imperialism is in a weak position and not in a position of strength.
But the possibility of . . . broadening the direct war to the North is a possibility which we must pay utmost attention, because U.S. imperialism could be adventurous. We must be vigilant and prepared to cope with each worst possibility. The best way to cope, and not to let the U.S. broaden the direct warfare in the South or in the North, is to fight even more strongly and more accurately in the South, and make the puppet military units—the primary mainstay of the U.S.—rapidly fall apart, push military and political struggle forward, and quickly create the opportune moment to advance to complete defeat of U.S. imperialism and its lackeys in the South.
1. The Viet Cong. (Return to text)
2. Editorial insertions. (Return to text)
[From Gareth Porter, ed.,
Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation of Human Decisions (Stanfordville, New York: Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, Inc., 1979), 2:383–85.]
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