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President Johnson
The commander-in-chief has just listened to a
tape sent from Vietnam by his son-in-law
Charles Robb decribing an ambush in which GIs
were killed. His growing distress at the
inconclusive and intractable war mirrored that
of the country in 1967.
LBJ Library
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CHAPTER 5
On the Tiger’s Back
The United States at War, 1965–1967
W
hile visiting the aircraft carrier Ranger off the coast of Vietnam
in 1965, Robert Shaplen overheard a fellow journalist remark:
“They just ought to show this ship to the Vietcong—that would
make them give up.”1 From Lyndon Johnson in the White House to
the GI in the field, the United States went to war in 1965 in much
this frame of mind. The president had staked everything on the
u nexamined assumption that the enemy could be quickly brought
to bay by the application of American military might. The first com-
bat troops to enter Vietnam shared similar views. When “we
marched into the rice paddies on that damp March afternoon,”
Marine Lt. Philip Caputo later wrote, “we carried, along with our
packs and r ifles, the implicit conviction that the Viet Cong would
be quickly beaten.”2
Although by no means unique to the Vietnam War, this
o ptimism does much to explain the form that American participa-
tion took. The United States never developed a strategy appropriate
for the war it was fighting, in part because it assumed that the mere
application of its vast military power would be sufficient. The
failure of one level of force led to the next and then the next, until
the war attained a degree of destructiveness no one would have
thought possible in 1965. Most important, the optimism with which
the nation went to war accounts more than anything else for the
great frustration that subsequently developed in and out of
1Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution: The U.S. in Vietnam, 1946–1966 (New York,
1966), p. 186.
2Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (New York, 1977), p. xii.
177
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178 chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back
government. Failure never comes easily, but it comes especially hard
when success at little cost is anticipated.
Within two years, the optimism of 1965 had given way to deep
and painful frustration. By 1967, the United States had nearly a
half million combat troops in Vietnam. It had dropped more
bombs than in all theaters in World War II and was spending more
than $2 billion per month on the war. Some American officials per-
suaded themselves that progress had been made, but the undeni-
able fact was that the war continued. Lyndon Johnson thus faced
an agonizing dilemma. Unable to end the war by military means
and unwilling to make the concessions necessary to secure a nego-
tiated settlement, he discovered belatedly what George Ball had
warned in 1964: “Once on the tiger’s back we cannot be sure of
picking the place to dismount.”
American strategy in Vietnam was improvised rather than
carefully designed and contained numerous contradictions. The
United States went to war in 1965 to prevent the collapse of South
Vietnam, but it was never able to relate its tremendous military
power to the fundamental task of establishing a viable govern-
ment in Saigon. The administration insisted that the war must be
kept limited—the Soviet Union and China must not be provoked
to intervene—but the president counted on a quick and relatively
painless victory to avert unrest at home. That these goals might
not be compatible apparently never occurred to Johnson and his
civilian advisers. The United States injected its military power
directly into the struggle to cripple the insurgency and persuade
North Vietnam to stop its “aggression.” The administration vastly
underestimated the enemy’s capacity to resist, however, and did
not confront the crucial question of what would be required to
achieve its goals until it was bogged down in a bloody stalemate.
While the president and his civilian advisers set limits on the
conduct of the war, they did not provide firm strategic guidelines
for the use of American power. Left on its own, the military fought
the conventional war for which it was prepared, without reference
to the peculiar conditions in Vietnam. Westmoreland and the Joint
Chiefs chafed under the restraints imposed by the civilians. Sensi-
tive to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s fate in Korea, however, they
would not challenge the president directly or air their case in pub-
lic. On the other hand, they refused to develop a strategy that
accommodated the restrictions imposed by the White House;
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chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back 179
instead, they attempted to break the restrictions down one by one
until they got what they wanted. The result was considerable ambi-
guity in purpose and method, growing civil-military tension, and a
steady escalation that brought increasing costs and uncertain gain.3
ROLLING THUNDER
The United States relied heavily on bombing.4 Airpower doctrine
emphasized that the destruction of an enemy’s war-making capacity
would force that enemy to come to terms. The limited success of
strategic bombing as applied on a large scale in World War II and on
a more restricted scale in Korea raised serious questions about the
validity of this assumption. The conditions prevailing in Vietnam, a
primitive country with few crucial targets, might have suggested
even more questions. The air force and navy advanced unrealistic
expectations about what airpower might accomplish, however, and
clung to them long after experience had proven them unjustified.
The civilian leadership accepted the military’s arguments, at least to
a point, because bombing was cheaper in lives lost and therefore
more palatable at home, and because it seemed to offer a quick and
comparatively easy solution to a complex problem. Initiated in early
1965 as much from the lack of alternatives as from anything else, the
bombing of North Vietnam was expanded over the next two years
in the vain hope that it would check infiltration into the South and
force North Vietnam to the conference table.
The air war gradually assumed massive proportions. The presi-
dent firmly resisted the Joint Chiefs’ proposal for a knockout blow,
but as each phase of the bombing failed to produce results, he
expanded the list of targets and the number of strikes. Sorties
against North Vietnam increased from 25,000 in 1965 to 79,000 in
1966 and 108,000 in 1967; bomb tonnage increased from 63,000 to
136,000 to 226,000. Throughout 1965, rolling thunder concen-
trated on military bases, supply depots, and infiltration routes in
the southern part of the country. From early 1966 on, air strikes
3George C. Herring, LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War (Austin, Tex., 1994),
pp. 26–62.
4The best analyses of the air war are Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The
American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York, 1989), and Earl H. Tilford Jr., Setup:
What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., 1991).
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were increasingly directed against the North Vietnamese industrial
and transportation systems and moved steadily northward. In the
summer of 1966, Johnson authorized massive strikes against petro-
leum storage facilities and transportation networks. A year later, he
permitted attacks on steel factories, power plants, and other targets
around Hanoi and Haiphong as well as on previously restricted
areas along the Chinese border.
The bombing inflicted an estimated $600-million damage on a
nation still struggling to develop a viable, modern economy. The air
attacks crippled North Vietnam’s industrial productivity and dis-
rupted its agriculture. Some cities were virtually leveled, others
severely damaged. Giant B-52s, carrying payloads of 58,000 pounds,
relentlessly attacked the areas leading to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, leav-
ing the countryside scarred with huge craters and littered with
debris. The bombing was not directed against the civilian population,
and the administration publicly maintained that civilian casualties
were minimal. But the CIA estimated that in 1967 total casualties ran
as high as 2,800 per month and admitted that these figures were
heavily weighted with civilians; McNamara privately conceded that
civilian casualties were as high as 1,000 per month during periods of
intensive bombing. A British diplomat later recalled that by the fall of
1967 there were signs among the civilian population of the major cit-
ies of widespread malnutrition and declining morale.5
The manner in which airpower was used in Vietnam virtually
ensured that it would not achieve its objectives. Whether, as the
Joint Chiefs argued, a massive, unrestricted air war would have
worked remains much in doubt. In fact, the United States had
destroyed most major targets by 1967 with no demonstrable effect
on the war. Nevertheless, the administration’s gradualist approach
gave Hanoi time to construct an air defense system, protect its vital
resources, and develop alternative modes of transportation.
Gradualism encouraged the North Vietnamese to persist despite
the damage inflicted upon them.
North Vietnam demonstrated great ingenuity and dogged per-
severance in coping with the bombing. Civilians were evacuated
from the cities and dispersed across the countryside; industries and
5Raphael Littauer and Norman Uphoff (eds.), The Air War in Indochina (Boston, 1972),
pp. 39–43. For a firsthand account of the impact of the bombing, see John Colvin,
“Hanoi in My Time,” Washington Quarterly (Spring 1981): 138–154.
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chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back 181
The Mu Gia Pass
The Mu Gia Pass through the Annamite cordillera was a major entry point
from North Vietnam into Laos on the fabled Ho Chi Minh Trail. An
estimated 66 percent of North Vietnamese truck traffic went through it.
Identifying the pass as a point of possible enemy vulnerability, the United
States bombed it relentlessly, leaving the moonscape portrayed here in
1968. After each bombing, the North Vietnamese quickly repaired the
damage, and the Mu Gia Pass was never closed for any significant length
of time.
storage facilities were scattered and in many cases concealed in
caves and under the ground. The government claimed to have dug
over 30,000 miles of tunnels, and in heavily bombed areas the
p eople spent much of their lives underground. An estimated
500,000 North Vietnamese, many of them women and children,
worked full-time repairing bridges and railroads. Piles of gravel
were kept along the major roadways, enabling “Youth Shock Bri-
gades” to fill craters within hours after the bombs fell. Concrete and
steel bridges were replaced by ferries and pontoon bridges made of
bamboo stalks, which were sunk during the day to avoid detection.
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Truck drivers covered vehicles with palm fronds and banana leaves
and traveled at night, without headlights, guided only by white
markers along the roads. B-52s blasted the narrow roads through
the Mu Gia Pass leading to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but to American
amazement trucks moved back through within several days. “Cau-
casians cannot really imagine what ant labor can do,” one Ameri-
can remarked with a mixture of frustration and admiration.6
Losses in military equipment, raw materials, and vehicles were
more than offset by drastically increased aid from the Soviet Union
and China. U.S. escalation did not force the two Communist rivals
back into a close alliance, as George Ball had warned. Nevertheless,
along with their increasingly heated rivalry, it permitted Hanoi to
play one against the other to get increased aid and prevent either
from securing predominant influence.
Until 1965, the Soviet Union had remained detached from the
conflict, but the new leaders who overthrew premier Nikita
Khrushchev in October 1964 took a much greater interest in
Vietnam, and U.S. escalation presented challenges and opportuni-
ties they could not ignore. The bombing created a need for sophisti-
cated military equipment that only the Soviets could provide,
giving them a chance to wean North Vietnam from dependence on
China. At a time when the Chinese were loudly proclaiming Soviet
indifference to the fate of world revolution, the direct threat to a
Communist state posed by U.S. escalation required the Russians to
prove their credibility. The expanding war provided opportunities
for the USSR to undermine U.S. prestige, tie down both of its major
rivals, test its own weapons under combat conditions, and analyze
the latest U.S. military hardware. The Soviets were nervous about
escalation of the war and especially feared a nuclear confrontation
like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. They resented North Vietnam’s
stubborn independence, bemoaned the fact that their massive aid
did not purchase commensurate influence with Hanoi, and com-
plained of the way the North Vietnamese used their freighters in
Haiphong harbor as shields against U.S. bombing. But the Russians
steadily expanded their support. Up to January 1, 1968, they
f urnished more than 1.8 billion rubles in assistance to North
6Quoted in Townsend Hoopes, The Limits of Intervention (New York, 1970), p. 79. For
North Vietnam’s response to the air war, see Jon M. Van Dyke, North Vietnam’s Strat-
egy for Survival (Palo Alto, Calif., 1972).
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chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back 183
Vietnam, 60 percent of which was for military aid that included
such modern weapons as fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles
(SAMs), and tanks. Three thousand Soviet technicians took direct
part in the war effort, some of them manning antiaircraft batteries
and SAM sites and actually shooting down U.S. aircraft.7
For China also, the war with the United States—especially the air
war—presented challenges and opportunities. The Chinese had sup-
ported North Vietnam since the Geneva Conference. At a time when
they were asserting leadership of the world revolutionary move-
ment, they could not help but view U.S. escalation as a “test case for
‘true communism.’ ” They deemed the defense of North Vietnam
essential to their own security. By rallying his people to meet an
external threat, party chairman Mao Zedong also sought to mobilize
support for his radicalization of China’s domestic policies. Like the
Soviets, the Chinese feared a confrontation with the United States,
and they had vivid memories of losses suffered in the Korean War.
They therefore let it be known through public statements and inter-
mediaries that should the United States invade North Vietnam they
would send their own forces. They also made clear through words
and deeds their full support for their ally. Under agreements worked
out in 1964 and 1965, approximately 320,000 Chinese engineering
and artillery troops helped the Vietnamese build new highways, rail-
roads, and bridges to facilitate the transport of supplies from China
and build manned antiaircraft positions to defend the existing
n etwork from American attack. The Chinese also provided huge
quantities of vehicles, small arms and ammunition, uniforms and
shoes, rice and other foodstuffs, even volleyball and table tennis
equipment for the recreation of North Vietnamese troops. In contrast
to the First Indochina War, the wary Vietnamese did not permit their
powerful allies to control their decision making. They developed into
an art form the exploitation of divisions between the Soviet Union
and China. Although eager supplicants, they were also tough negoti-
ators who held out for what they most needed rather than accept
outright what others offered. Assistance from the Soviet Union,
China, and ten other Communist-bloc nations made up roughly
60 percent of North Vietnam’s budget between 1965 and 1967, thus
7Ilya V. Gaiduk, “The Vietnam War and Soviet-American Relations, 1964–1973: New
Russian Evidence,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin (Winter 1995/1996):
232, 250–258.
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184 chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back
sustaining its war economy. It helped North Vietnam counter U.S. air
attacks, replaced equipment lost through the bombing, and freed
Hanoi to send more of its own troops to the South. The consistent
underestimation of its volume and importance by U.S. intelligence
led top officials to believe that North Vietnam was more vulnerable
to U.S. military pressure than it was.8
Other factors reduced the effectiveness of the bombing. Heavy
rains and impenetrable fog forced curtailment of missions during
the long monsoon season, from September to May. Pilots claimed to
be able to bomb with “surgical” precision, but the weather and
techniques that had not advanced much since World War II made
for considerable inaccuracy. Many targets had to be bombed repeat-
edly before they were finally destroyed. As they came closer to
Hanoi and Haiphong, U.S. aircraft ran up against a deadly air
defense system. Soviet SAMs and MiG fighters did not score a high
kill rate, but they threw off bombing patterns and forced pilots
down to altitudes where they confronted heavy flak and small-
arms fire. One U.S. pilot described North Vietnam as the “center of
hell with Hanoi as its hub.”9
Despite the extensive damage inflicted on North Vietnam, the
bombing did not achieve its goals. It absorbed a great deal of person-
nel and resources that might have been diverted to other military
uses. It hampered the movement of troops and supplies to the South,
and its proponents argued that infiltration would have been much
greater without it. Official American estimates nevertheless conceded
that infiltration increased from about 35,000 soldiers in 1965 to as
many as 90,000 in 1967, even as the bombing grew heavier and more
destructive. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and National Liberation
Front (NLF) troops required only 34 tons of supplies a day from out-
side South Vietnam, “a trickle too small for airpower to stop.”10 It is
impossible to gauge with any accuracy the psychological impact of
the bombing on North Vietnam, but it did not destroy Hanoi’s
8James G. Hershberg and Chen Jian, “Informing the Enemy: Sino-American ‘Signal-
ing’ and the Vietnam War,” in Priscilla Roberts, ed., Behind the Bamboo Curtain (Stan-
ford, Calif., 2006), pp. 193–257; Harish C. Mehta, “Soviet Biscuit Factories and
Chinese Financial Grants: North Vietnam’s Economic Diplomacy in 1967 and 1968,”
Diplomatic History 36 (April 2012): 316, 318, 319–320, 324.
9Quoted in Clodfelter, Limits of Air Power, pp. 131–132.
10Tilford, Setup, p. 113.
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chapter 5: On the Tiger’s Back 185
determination to prevail. It gave the leadership a powerful rallying
cry to mobilize the civilian population in support of the war.
By 1967, the United States was paying a heavy price for no more
than marginal gains. The cost in bombs of a B-52 mission ran to
$30,000 per sortie. The direct cost of the air war, including operation
of the aircraft, munitions, and replacement of planes, was estimated
at more than $1.7 billion during 1965 and 1966, a period when air-
craft losses exceeded 500. Overall, between 1965 and 1968 the
United States lost 950 aircraft costing roughly $6 billion. According
to one estimate, for each $1 of damage inflicted on North Vietnam,
the United States spent $9.60. The costs cannot be measured in dol-
lars alone, however. Captured U.S. fliers gave Hanoi hostages who
would assume increasing importance in the stalemated war. The
continued pounding of a small, backward country by the world’s
wealthiest and most advanced nation gave the North Vietnamese a
propaganda advantage they exploited quite effectively. Opposition
to the war at home increasingly focused on the bombing, which, in
the eyes of many critics, was at best inefficient, at worst immoral.
SEARCH AND DESTROY
American ground operations in the South also escalated dramati-
cally between 1965 and 1967. Even before he had significant num-
bers of combat forces at his disposal, Westmoreland had formulated
the strategy he would employ until early 1968. It was a strategy of
attrition, the major objective of which was to locate and eliminate
NLF and North Vietnamese regular units. Westmoreland has vigor-
ously denied that he was motivated by any “Napoleonic impulse to
maneuver units and hark to the sound of cannon,” but “search and
destroy,” as his strategy came to be called, did reflect traditional U.S.
Army doctrine. In Westmoreland’s view, North Vietnam’s decision
to commit large units to the war left him no choice but to proceed
along these lines. He did not have sufficient forces to police the
entire country, nor was it enough simply to contain the enemy’s
main units. “They had to be pounded with artillery and bombs and
eventually brought to battle on the ground if they were not forever
to remain a threat.” The helicopter provided a means to quickly
d eliver large numbers of U.S. troops over difficult terrain to get at
enemy forces, and “airmobility” became a major instrument of
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