Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned

636 Pages·2008·7.43 MB·English

by  Rufus Phillips

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
Annapolis, Maryland
The latest edition of the work has been brought to publication with the
generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
© 2008 by Rufus Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61251-562-5
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Phillips, Rufus.
Why Vietnam matters : an eyewitness account of lessons not learned / Rufus Phillips.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—United States. 2. Vietnam—History—1945–1975. 3. Phillips, Rufus. I.
Title.
DS558.P49 2008
959.704’3—dc22
2008023335
Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
14 13 12 11 10 9 8 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my wife, Barbara, our children, and our grandchildren.
For the 1954–56 Saigon Military Mission.
For the volunteers of USOM Rural Affairs,
Americans and Vietnamese.
And for all those who died for a just but imperfectly pursued cause.
Contents List of Maps
Foreword
Preface
PART I: THE BIRTH OF SOUTH VIETNAM, 1954–56
Prologue
Chapter 1: Saigon—Panier de Crabes
Chapter 2: Making a Start
Chapter 3: A Nation Begins to Rise
Chapter 4: A Bucket of Eels and Operation Giai Phong
Chapter 5: The Battle for Saigon
Chapter 6: Civic Action
Chapter 7: South Vietnam Stabilizes—Laos Up for Grabs
PART II: VIETNAM AT RISK, 1960–63
Prologue
Chapter 8: Return to Vietnam
Chapter 9: Starting Rural Affairs
Chapter 10: An Uneven Path
Chapter 11: The Buddhist Crisis
Chapter 12: Ambassador Lodge Intervenes
Chapter 13: Meeting President Kennedy
Chapter 14: The Overthrow of Diem
Chapter 15: The New Regime
PART III: HOPE AND FRUSTRATION, 1964–68
Prologue
Chapter 16: Events Go Wrong
Chapter 17: General Taylor Replaces Lodge
Chapter 18: The Lansdale Mission
Chapter 19: Triumph of the Bureaucrats
Chapter 20: Refusing to Give Up
Chapter 21: Change Comes Late
PART IV: THE FINAL ACT—AND THE FUTURE
Chapter 22: Humphrey Loses, Nixon Takes Over
Chapter 23: Tragic Aftermath—and Why
Chapter 24: Beyond Vietnam: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Future
Acknowledgments
Notes
Cast of Characters
Glossary
Note on Sources
Index
Maps
1. Indochina Area
2. National Security Action (Pacification) Areas, 1955
3. Saigon, 1954–1955
4. South Vietnam, 1962–1963
5. Saigon, 1963
Foreword
By Richard Holbrooke
I
n 1951, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA spotted a talented young man
at its favorite recruiting grounds, Yale University. Thus began the saga of
Rufus Phillips, one of the most remarkable figures of America’s tortured
involvement in Vietnam. Rufus got to Saigon in August 1954, shortly after
the French defeat in Indochina. It was a critical time for the region. The United
States was replacing the French as the major outside power, and the Viet Minh
(the Vietnamese communists, led by Ho Chi Minh), who already controlled the
northern half of the nation, were soon to begin a twenty-year drive to unify
Vietnam under their control. Working under the legendary and controversial
Edward Lansdale (the model for the character of Colonel Hillandale in the
bestselling book The Ugly American), Rufus rose rapidly. He was intelligent,
energetic, and charismatic.
Eight years later he was back in Vietnam, running a groundbreaking division
of the United States foreign aid mission called the Office of Rural Affairs,
dedicated to what would be called today “nation building.” (In those days it was
usually referred to as “pacification”—a word no longer politically correct.) And
one year after that, Rufus Phillips became my first boss.
I had joined the Foreign Service in 1962, drawn to it by President John F.
Kennedy’s stirring calls to public service. Others in my generation went into the
Peace Corps, or rode freedom buses south to fight segregation. As for me, in part
because my best friend in high school had been David Rusk, whose father, the
future secretary of state, had talked to our senior class about something called
the Foreign Service, I took and passed the Foreign Service exam when I was a
senior in college. I entered the Foreign Service one month after graduating. Less
than a year later, after language training and area studies, I was sent to Vietnam
along with several other young diplomats, including Vladimir Lehovich, to
whom I owe many things, including years of friendship and his advice and
assistance for this foreword.
Unknown to Vlad and me, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, U.
Alexis Johnson, wanted to try a small experiment and give a few young Foreign
Service officers (FSOs) field experience, outside embassies. Almost by chance,
partly because we were bachelors, Vlad and I were the first selected. There were
about ten thousand to twelve thousand American military personnel, mostly as
advisers to the Vietnamese armed forces, in Vietnam when we arrived.
American deaths in Vietnam had reached about fifty. Both numbers seemed
enormous to us. As I recall, we were not in the slightest bit concerned about our
own safety. We were young and indestructible. Bad things happened to other
people. Soon we would be joined by some of the best young diplomats of our
generation, many of whom went on to stellar careers: Frank Wisner, Tony Lake
(who joined the Foreign Service with Vlad and me), Peter Tarnoff, John
Negroponte (with whom I would eventually share a house), and Les Aspin (then
an Air Force captain who never wore a uniform), were among the tight group of
junior officials who came to Vietnam and became, in many cases, lifelong
friends. Not everyone survived intact. One of our group, Doug Ramsey, was
captured by the Viet Cong and spent years in hellish conditions before coming
home in the early 1970s with other prisoners. There were others who died, at
least one by his own hand. Tony Lake and a colleague, Edie Smith, barely
survived a bomb attack just outside their offices in the U.S. embassy.
For Vlad and me, Rufus was at the center of this exciting time in our lives.
There was something slightly mysterious about him. He was young enough to be
our older brother, but he was respected by everyone, including the ambassador.
He was close to senior Vietnamese officials. His past was the subject of
whispers, but he was said to be a personal protégé of the great Lansdale. He had
briefed Kennedy personally!
All of this turned out to be true. But what I remember most was his
inspirational style of leadership, his endless energy, and his boundless optimism
about his mission and its importance to the nation. He believed, as did other
members of his generation, that America could accomplish almost anything, if
we did it right. In the early 1960s, especially right after Kennedy’s extraordinary
achievement in the Cuban Missile Crisis, our slightly younger group believed the
same thing. Rufus gave this belief shape and substance.
Why Vietnam Matters is a major contribution to the history of Vietnam. It
contains important lessons for the wars America is currently fighting in Iraq and
Afghanistan. So much of what the current generation of military and civilian
officials claim are new doctrines and ideas are identical to programs and
strategies that were virtually all tried in Vietnam. Gen. David Petraeus’ much-
praised counter-insurgency handbook, for example, bears a strong (and not