How did the American government "lie about Vietnam?"

[Nakura]

I admit that I am not an expert on the Vietnam War, but I have studied the war for a number of years (including two college courses on it) and have found my views on the war to be ever changing. However, one charge that I hear often disbursed is that the American government "lied to the people" about Vietnam, a statement which I am having a hard time substantiating. The argument that the American government lied tends to rest largely on two pieces of evidence. The first piece being the second Gulf of Tonkin incident and the second piece being General Westmoreland's statement that the United States was "close to victory."


While it is true that the second Golf of Tonkin most likely didn't occur, American policymakers and those in the defense/intelligence community believed that it did happen at the time. It wasn't until after the incident that doubts began to arise as to whether or not the second incident occurred. Even if the second incident didn't occur, the first incident certainly did; though whether or not North Vietnam's attack was "justified" or not is a matter of some debate (as one could argue that they were "retaliating" against a South Vietnamese special forces operation in North Vietnam).


As for Westmoreland's statement, one could argue that he was acting on "bad information" or legitimately believed that the United States was winning the war. It should be noted that Westmoreland went out of his way to stifle any and all reports that challenged the effectiveness of his policies. This leads to the second point, that Westmoreland was speaking largely of his own views when making that statement, rather than speaking on behalf of the United States, as he had personally destroyed the careers of anyone who questioned his policies.


Also, one could argue that perhaps the United States was "winning the war," as the TET Offensive had completely destroyed the Viet Cong as a political entity. Not only that, but when Westmoreland was fired for his midhandling of the Vietnam War, he was replaced with General Creighton Abrams who undertook policies more suited to winning the hearts and minds of the people. With the Viet Cong having been eliminated, there were fewer obstacles to pacification (a policy that was vastly expanded under Abrams). Abrams also introduced a policy of taking and holding ground, making it almost impossible for the Viet Cong to ever be reformed. Abrams new policies, as well as the policy of Vietnamization, were major steps in winning the war. Knowing what we know now about how devastating the TET Offensive was for the Viet Cong (and how it prompted Westmoreland to be replaced), perhaps Westmoreland's statement about the war was not entirely untrue (though not for the reasons he believed).


I believe I have addressed the two main charges against the United States government having "lied" about Vietnam, but if you care to dispute my two statements and/or have other major examples of the American government "lying about Vietnam," I'm open to hearing them.

[Aikanár]

Lyndon B. Johnson: "We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves," - 1964.

If the President of the United States does not count as "American government" then I don't know.

[Cyclops]

"Viet Cong". There was no such organsiation.

[Nakura]

Lyndon B. Johnson: "We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves," - 1964.

If the President of the United States does not count as "American government" then I don't know.

The situation changed and the president's policy changed with it?

[Aikanár]

The situation changed and the president's policy changed with it?

L.B. Johnson was nominated on August 27th 1964. The quote is from a speech given in his fist appearance after receiving the nomination. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, empowering the President with

Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repeal any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent any further aggression.

was enacted August 7th 1964.

How exactly did the situation in Vietnam change after that in a way that would not make the statement of the President a lie meaning how did the situation escalated in an unpredictable fashion? Because if it was predictable, say like that US Air Force bases would need sufficiently trained and armed guards in sufficient numbers when being located in a country in which a countrywide armed insurgency was taking place, then that makes the statement of the President a lie.

Also, just being ignorant and focusing on the "New Deal" isn't an excuse for lying either.

[Nakura]

L.B. Johnson was nominated on August 27th 1964. The quote is from a speech given in his fist appearance after receiving the nomination. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, empowering the President with was enacted August 7th 1964.

How exactly did the situation in Vietnam change after that in a way that would not make the statement of the President a lie meaning how did the situation escalated in an unpredictable fashion? Because if it was predictable, say like that US Air Force bases would need sufficiently trained and armed guards in sufficient numbers when being located in a country in which a countrywide armed insurgency was taking place, then that makes the statement of the President a lie.

Also, just being ignorant and focusing on the "New Deal" isn't an excuse for lying either.

Johnson knew full well that the situation in Vietnam wasn't a good one (as evidenced by his conversation with Senator Russel), but as you said, he began sending armed guards there in response to VC/NLF attacks. If a relatively unguarded American military base were attacked today, the president would almost certainly have to increase security for said base. I'm no apologist for Johnson, but it's not as though he intended to deploy over a hundred thousand troops to Vietnam in 1964.

[Aikanár]

Johnson knew full well that the situation in Vietnam wasn't a good one (as evidenced by his conversation with Senator Russel), but as you said, he began sending armed guards there in response to VC/NLF attacks. If a relatively unguarded American military base were attacked today, the president would almost certainly have to increase security for said base. I'm no apologist for Johnson, but it's not as though he intended to deploy over a hundred thousand troops to Vietnam in 1964.

Ap Bac proved as early as January 1963 that VC had successfully adopted to the previously successful tactics of spear and net and proved more than a match to even elite SVN units with embedded US military advisors. Since January 1963 VC casualty rates went down and SVN army casualty rates went up. A heavier military involvement of the US was imminent as soon as January 1963 and during this year the presence of naval and air force fighter forces up to B52 squadrons was increased drastically.

Taking into consideration the political doctrine Johnson followed with regards to containment and domino effect theory on the one hand, the developments in tactical results of '63 and '64 on the other hand implied that putting boots on the ground was obviously to happen and to say otherwise simply was defying the facts - and not facts in hindsight.

The state in which some divisions of SVNs troops have been in those years and the successes of the VC made it obvious that the Air bases used in SVN would make for brilliant mortar raid targets.

Everything Johnson said with regards to communism and its containment and everything that happened in SVN in '63 and '64 pointed to the use of boots on the grounds. I seriously doubt that the deployment of the first "combat troops" on February 9th 1965 came out of the blue for Johnson, even though he might have believed in '63 that the VC could be subdued with sole US advisory, air and naval presence. But I find it highly unlikely that he could possibly be of the same conviction in late August '64.

And don't get me wrong, I really like Johnson as a President and I find his "New Deal" great, but you questioned whether or not the US government ever lied to the US public with regards to the Vietnam war and I believe this is a perfect example of a lie to the public.

[Ludicus]

While it is true that the second Golf of Tonkin most likely didn't occur, American policymakers and those in the defense/intelligence community believed that it did happen at the time .

True or false, is that relevant? the two alleged incidents were both completely irrelevant. The USA administrations, under the pretext of "saving" Asia from a "communist takeover" increasingly involved the US in the French colonial war.
In 1953, President Eisenhower explained:"Indo-China and the whole of South-East Asia are essential to the US, both for strategic and political reasons".

In 1954 - just one year before the beginning of the war- Eisenhower said, "The possible consequences of the loss of Indochina are just incalculable to the free world". For the first time, he articulated the "falling domino" principle, and that was the main reason for the US involvement in Indochina/Vietnam. But he failed to see that the goal of Ho Chi Min was limited to Vietnamese independence, rather than the spread of communism.

[Dick Cheney.]

I believe I have addressed the two main charges against the United States government having "lied" about Vietnam, but if you care to dispute my two statements and/or have other major examples of the American government "lying about Vietnam," I'm open to hearing them.

You forgot to address Body Counts.



Political pressure put on the Pentagon by the White House indirectly caused commanders on the ground to inflate numbers so the Johnson administration could claim that the conflict was going on better than it actually was. The awful misleading practice has since been done away with by the DoD.

[Claudius Gothicus]

LBJ gets a lot of flak for the whole "We are not about to send american boys..." speech when a significant part of the problem was inherited from previous administrations, specifically the Eisenhower one, which clearly biased by the earlier red scare stood firmly by France's failed colonial attempts and refused to back the Vietminh when there was a real chance of luring them away from the bloc. But yeah, after the 50K troops where deployed the result was going to be painful.

[fdsdh1]

The US didn't really lie about the war at all

the fact the first Gulf of Tonking incident happened was cause enough for going in (coupled with aggressive communist expansion), the second one was faked, but the US were still justified

Militarily the US were always winning, however they were hampered by the South Vietnamese Government, in an ideal world the US would have completely removed this government and created a new more democratic one from the ground up. Or invaded North Vietnam (although this may have caused a conflict with China).

It was a bad situation, bad guys on both sides

[anant]

I think when most people feel the government "lied" to them, they are talking about the general feeling of being misinformed or mislead into believing either the true cause of the war, or the real course of the war, or the overall strategic vision or whatever, or all of the above. Of course it can be argued that no government can be expected to reveal the truth about their operational details (always assuming they themselves are truly aware of them!) to it's people...indeed the US government behaved in exactly the same manner about Iraq (which is perhaps why people felt "lied" to about that too), and so does every other "government" throughout history. In fact the need to make their wayward and messy wars seem like nice, smooth and planned processes makes every commander, politician, and for a while even every soldier perhaps "lie" to the "people". The crux of your argument which resonates is the fact that can governments be really blamed for this "deception" when faced with the uninterested and apathetic populations they have to rely on, and I think they can't really be faulted if the basic cause of their war is "just", and here is where I think the difference between Vietnam and for example, the 2nd world war emerge. Murky and secret reasons do not make for "just" wars (Iraq et all too) in public minds, and they tend to nitpick (gulf of Tonkin, WMDs in Iraq), whereas clear cut and well enunciated objectives tend to make wars less unpalatable (ww2, Korea(?)). So in my opinion, this is why many people feel "lied" to about the Vietnam war.

[strategist.com]

Well US didn't let Vietnamese for the right for self-determination by not letting the referendum to take place so that's a lie.

[Patronus]

Lyndon B. Johnson: "We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves," - 1964.

If the President of the United States does not count as "American government" then I don't know.

Well when President Obama promised to get out of Iraq in 2009 and then in 2014 when he reiterated his commitment to staying out of the brewing strife in Syria and western Iraq, should that be considered a lie too, seeing as how we now have at least 4,000 troops on the deck?

I think both Presidents tried to make promises that they couldn't keep, but I don't know that we can consider them lies.

To the OP's point, one of the biggest myths about the Vietnam war was that it was an unwinnable quagmire; that even by the Tet Offensive in 1968, America was no where close to winning the conflict. The reality on the ground, as indicated by numerous reports from both Viet Cong, North Vietnamese and American reports indicate that in fact the insurgency infrastructure in South Vietnam was largely wiped out following Tet. The Viet Cong had banked on a general uprising and country-wide instability to help them in their endeavor but that really didn't pan out, and once they exposed themselves, many of them were taken out by the US/ARVN counter-attacks throughout the country or in the later sweep and snatch operations and direct action programs (like Phoenix). By 1968 as well, ARVN had become somewhat proficient at counter-insurgency operations and had become somewhat capable of operating on their own in that capacity. If you read actual intel and operational reports by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese field commanders, you can see that they were actually aware of the significance of their defeat and thought that they might have to sue for peace.

The only reason Tet proved to be the beginning of the end was because the American public interpreted it as a major defeat and saw it as an indication that the US government had been misleading them on certain issues (which, to be fair, the US government had been doing, as it it had done for previous conflicts like Korea and WWII). The leaders of the US were still in 1940's mode where everything that was published and said about the war effort had to be positive (think back to all those 1940's WWII bond and propaganda movies, they always portrayed US troops as having the situation well in hand, even though that was far from the reality on the ground). Political support for the war waned, US government began to shift troops out of Vietnam and hand over the war effort to ARVN (Vietnamization). ARVN actually did a half decent job of holding their own against the increasingly conventional attacks of North Vietnam into the early 1970's, but when the US decided to break off all support, including air support, they crumbled.

One of the tragedies out of that war, besides from the obvious casualty numbers on both sides, was that the US built up and trained a semi-decent counter-insurgency fighting force and then abandoned it right as the conflict transitioned from predominantly insurgency to conventional war. The type of conflict that ultimately overwhelmed the ARVN was very similar to what happened to the ROK forces in the opening stages of the Korean war, except in that war the US increased its troop presence and fought it out.

[ByzantinePowerGame]

Read the Pentagon Papers, they make it clear that the key policymakers knew very well that the Gulf of Tonkin was an overblown hoax. The Pentagon Papers make it clear that several successive US Presidents lied to Congress, and that the Pentagon/DoD top military brass helped sell the lies.

[NorseThing]

Not really academic, but there is a movie about to be released on LBJ on nov 3 2017.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4778988/

A good synopsis on the LBJ Gulf of Tonkin and the Ellsberg Pentagon Papers from a few years ago but around the 50 year anniversary:
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-wage-war-iraq