Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam, 1960-1965

Rating:
Summary: The Greater Tragedy
Review: 'Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam' looks beyond the curtain of lies concocted by Johnson & McNamara in 1964. A simple truth remains too devastating for mainstream publication. Johnson pulled the trigger on the American War in Vietnam by ordering retaliatory strikes three months prior to the election of 1964. No mere coincidence. Johnson did so to win the election. No other factor accounts for Johnson's arrogant insistance on immediate retaliation to an event which never occurred. A 24 hour delay would have revealed there was no Tonkin Gulf attack as claimed. Johnson adamantly demanded an immediate attack for he feared any delay would deny him the use of his trump card as CinC. Air strikes were used to defeat Goldwater. Johnson won the election then defeated himself by his arrogant miss use of military power. Johnson's effort to intimidate Ho Chi Minh failed miserably. Ho recognized retaliatory strikes as the superficial show of force it was. Without a commitment to win Johnson's efforts were doomed to failure from the start. Certain defeat was recognized, long before Johnson stepped aside in '68. 'Prelude' provides evidence of the impending tragedy as it unfolded. However the most damming evidence was left out. The purpose of the air strike was to win the election. Johnson's fear, greed & grasp for power must be recognized if we are to avoid future acts of arrogance leading to war by a renegade president. Our constitution did not grant dictatorial power to a ruthless tyrant. How then, did Johnson acquire sufficient power to over ride congressional restraint & military dissent? He did so by lies, deceit & intimidation for all who stood in his way including his Vice President. Humphrey was denied access to LBJ's inner circle of advisors on Vietnam. JCS members were blocked from attending crucial strategy sessions. Johnson reduced JCS members to pawns, merely carrying out miss guided 'strategies' concocted by McNamara & his 'War Room' of civilian 'experts'. Military officers were intimidated, insulted, humiliated & ignored by Johnson. Military strategies were dictated by Johnson's political agenda. Without a compelling national security threat, military logic or justification for acts of war in Vietnam, Johnson created the ruse of a Tonkin Gulf attack to over ride congressional & military reluctance to war. He then launched unprovoked acts of war to enhance his political image. Johnson's arrogance in resorting to war to win the '64 election is supported by evidence presented in 'Prelude to Tragedy'. The authors failure to state this self evident fact is understandable. Doing so would have invited disbelief, criticism and ostracism. Lies perpetrated by Johnson & McNamara have been assimilated into the very fiber of American perceptions of defeat in Vietnam. The dregs remain today. American foreign policy remains a threat to many, including our allies. Claims of justification for American efforts in Vietnam no longer hold water. 'Prelude to Tragedy' puts an end to McNamara's claim of a well intentioned humanitarian effort. It reveals false claims & deceit by LBJ then and McNamara now in their efforts to distort the reality & rewrite history. American aggression in Vietnam must be revealed & recognized if we are to restore a balance of power. Existing presidential powers enable incumbents to initiate acts of war without the advice or consent of congress. The War Powers Resolution has been ignored by presidents as unconstitutional. This breach of our constitution must first be recognized if it is to be corrected. Americans have yet to grasp this essential lesson from defeat in Vietnam. Failure to curb presidential war powers and restore the balance of power leaves the tragedy without redeeming value. The least we can do is make full use of lessons learned in Vietnam. This nation will not endure without an effective balance between congressional & presidential powers. Will Americans awaken in time to turn the ship of state around before running aground on another distant shore for the sake of political expediency? Or will McNamara & others succeed in efforts to rewrite that tragic chapter? This book contributes to an essential dialog. Recognition of "The Greater Tragedy" may follow. 'Dereliction of Duty' and 'The Wrong War' provide further insight into this American tragedy.

Rating:
Summary: The Greater Tragedy
Review: 'Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam' looks beyond the curtain of lies concocted by Johnson & McNamara in 1964. A simple truth remains too devastating for mainstream publication. Johnson pulled the trigger on the American War in Vietnam by ordering retaliatory strikes three months prior to the election of 1964. No mere coincidence. Johnson did so to win the election. No other factor accounts for Johnson's arrogant insistance on immediate retaliation to an event which never occurred. A 24 hour delay would have revealed there was no Tonkin Gulf attack as claimed. Johnson adamantly demanded an immediate attack for he feared any delay would deny him the use of his trump card as CinC. Air strikes were used to defeat Goldwater. Johnson won the election then defeated himself by his arrogant miss use of military power. Johnson's effort to intimidate Ho Chi Minh failed miserably. Ho recognized retaliatory strikes as the superficial show of force it was. Without a commitment to win Johnson's efforts were doomed to failure from the start. Certain defeat was recognized, long before Johnson stepped aside in '68. 'Prelude' provides evidence of the impending tragedy as it unfolded. However the most damming evidence was left out. The purpose of the air strike was to win the election. Johnson's fear, greed & grasp for power must be recognized if we are to avoid future acts of arrogance leading to war by a renegade president. Our constitution did not grant dictatorial power to a ruthless tyrant. How then, did Johnson acquire sufficient power to over ride congressional restraint & military dissent? He did so by lies, deceit & intimidation for all who stood in his way including his Vice President. Humphrey was denied access to LBJ's inner circle of advisors on Vietnam. JCS members were blocked from attending crucial strategy sessions. Johnson reduced JCS members to pawns, merely carrying out miss guided 'strategies' concocted by McNamara & his 'War Room' of civilian 'experts'. Military officers were intimidated, insulted, humiliated & ignored by Johnson. Military strategies were dictated by Johnson's political agenda. Without a compelling national security threat, military logic or justification for acts of war in Vietnam, Johnson created the ruse of a Tonkin Gulf attack to over ride congressional & military reluctance to war. He then launched unprovoked acts of war to enhance his political image. Johnson's arrogance in resorting to war to win the '64 election is supported by evidence presented in 'Prelude to Tragedy'. The authors failure to state this self evident fact is understandable. Doing so would have invited disbelief, criticism and ostracism. Lies perpetrated by Johnson & McNamara have been assimilated into the very fiber of American perceptions of defeat in Vietnam. The dregs remain today. American foreign policy remains a threat to many, including our allies. Claims of justification for American efforts in Vietnam no longer hold water. 'Prelude to Tragedy' puts an end to McNamara's claim of a well intentioned humanitarian effort. It reveals false claims & deceit by LBJ then and McNamara now in their efforts to distort the reality & rewrite history. American aggression in Vietnam must be revealed & recognized if we are to restore a balance of power. Existing presidential powers enable incumbents to initiate acts of war without the advice or consent of congress. The War Powers Resolution has been ignored by presidents as unconstitutional. This breach of our constitution must first be recognized if it is to be corrected. Americans have yet to grasp this essential lesson from defeat in Vietnam. Failure to curb presidential war powers and restore the balance of power leaves the tragedy without redeeming value. The least we can do is make full use of lessons learned in Vietnam. This nation will not endure without an effective balance between congressional & presidential powers. Will Americans awaken in time to turn the ship of state around before running aground on another distant shore for the sake of political expediency? Or will McNamara & others succeed in efforts to rewrite that tragic chapter? This book contributes to an essential dialog. Recognition of "The Greater Tragedy" may follow. 'Dereliction of Duty' and 'The Wrong War' provide further insight into this American tragedy.

Rating:
Summary: Counterinsurgency Warfare: The Road Less Travelled
Review: America's strategy in the conduct of the war in Vietnam largely followed the model of attrition warfare. However, underneath the search and destroy tactics existed a sporadic application of maneuver warfare principles which were successfully manifested through counterinsurgency methods. As Marines, we should be familiar with the maneuver mindset behind III MAF's combined action program (Warfighting MCDP 1, p.39). Nonetheless, long before the Marines' adopted unconventional methods in Vietnam, government civilians effectively utilized principles of maneuver warfare. Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam 1960-1965 is their story as told by five American and three Vietnamese field operatives who loyally attempted, but failed to inject unconventional warfare into our mainstream national strategy. The book also provides profound insights on the importance of cultural education and morality during wartime and operation other than war. Central to the authors' efforts were maneuver concepts such as: knowing the enemy, identifying his center of gravity, targeting critical vulnerabilities, and using innovative techniques in support of a properly selected main effort (Warfighting MCDP-1, Chapter 4). All eight contributing authors identify incomplete knowledge of the enemy as the foundation beneath America's strategy in Vietnam. Five of the authors specifically refer to a passage in former Defense Secretary McNamara's book In Retrospect which blames our poor understanding of the Vietnamese situation to a "lack of experts." However, the divergence between McNamara's book and Prelude to Tragedy is that the latter is an autobiographical tribute by these very "experts" about their attempts to inform the American political and military establishment of the true nature of the conflict.. Having fought with Ho Chi Minh's forces in the conflict against the French, contributing authors Lu Lan and Tran Ngoc Chau understood that the center of gravity for both sides was the rural population. A population which provided concealment, intelligence, logistics, and manpower was the only fuel which could run the communist machine. To deny Ho Chi Minh popular political support would have driven him into an unwinnable conventional war. Therefore, the communists' critical vulnerability, their rear area, and their logistical infrastructure, so to speak, was the allegiance of the people. All eight authors of Prelude to Tragedy describe creative, unconventional methods that successfully attacked enemy vulnerabilities. These weaknesses were the communist incompatibilities with the social traditions of Vietnam and inability to bring about economic progress in the countryside. The great irony is that these methods were the least employed weapons within our arsenal. The last part of Prelude's thesis regards the South Vietnamese Army. The authors contend that it should have been trained as a decentralized, counter-guerilla force. In support of this main effort would have been a United States in an advisory or logistical role. However, the authors believe that early American withdrawal of political advisor Edward Lansdale, followed by Washington's tacit approval for President Diem's assassination made this relationship impossible to attain. The result was a large American military buildup which eventually bore the brunt of the fighting. Resulting Vietnamese disunity combined with the U.S. seizure of the limelight increased enemy influence in the countryside and irrevocably changed the future of Vietnam. Countless books have been written to explain the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Some say that more bombs would have won the war. Others regret American involvement altogether. The authors of Prelude to Tragedy do neither. They believe that their own effective methods could have, if supported on a large scale, greatly changed the outcome of the war. They contended then, as now, that a decentralized South Vietnamese government should have fought a largely political war using political means in the protection of the rural population. Tragic that this was the road less traveled.

Rating:
Summary: Unique contribution to Viet-Nam war history
Review: Prelude to Tragedy is one of the very few books ever published that focuses on the anti-poverty and civilian development roles of the United States in Viet-Nam. It does so with information and perspectives that have been almost universally ignored in all the writing that's appeared on this sad period of history. As such, and because it is written by key leaders at a crucial early stage of the American war in that country, it makes a unique contribution to our understanding of why the American effort failed on the political plane and therefore also on the military plane. The writers are extraordinarily committed Americans and Vietnamese who proved to have a far better understanding of Vietnamese civilian realities than the higher-ranking policy-makers who refused to pay them heed. In fact, their observations and conclusions inform and reinforce from additional perspectives those reached by Don Luce and me in our own book, Viet-Nam -- The Unheard Voices. The fact that those of us with expertise that came from living and working among the Vietnamese people themselves, from hearing the concerns they raised and the causes they espoused, were not taken sufficiently seriously -- indeed, that Robert McNamara had the gall to deny the existence of anyone who understood Viet-Nam and could have informed the highest American policy-makers -- is enough to make one angry all over again. But anger is not the correct response; the point is to learn for the future. And in this sense, and even after such a lapse of time, a wide readership for Prelude to Tragedy may hopefully help prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Vietnam War descriptive literature and analysis
Review: Prelude To Tragedy: Vietnam 1960-1965 comprises eight key essays covering the Vietnam war from a variety of personal and historical perspectives. The contributions include Before We Lost in South Vietnam (Rufe Phillips); Counterinsurgency in South Vietnam: The Real Story (Ben Fraleigh); The People's War or War on the People? (Lu Lan); Defeating Insurgency in South Vietnam: My Early Efforts (George K. Tanham); My War Story: From Ho Chi Minh to Ngo Dinh Diem (Tran Ngoc Chau); Life and Times of a USOM Prov Rep (John O'Donnell); Destination South Vietnam, 1959 (Harvey Neese). These articles are followed by the editors' "Conclusion" and an appendix (America's Involvement in Vietnam); a selected bibliography; and an index. Prelude To Tragedy is an impressive and very welcome addition to the growing library of Vietnam War descriptive literature and analysis.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting.
Review: These are the views of seven people, Americans and Vietnamese, who in the early sixties contended that the US should pursue a counterinsurgency approach instead of a full conventional war against the Viet Cong, only to be brushed aside by the Johnson/McNamara group. They suggested that once the "war for the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people" was won, the communist threat should disappear.

Although I do not believe counterinsurgency war alone is the only valid approach because of 1) the presence of 200,000 Viet Cong left behind in South Vietnam by Hanoi in 1954, 2) the determination of Hanoi to conquer Saigon, 3) the opening of the Ho Chi Minh trail , this unconvential approach should have been tried first. Had it been combined with a complete interdiction of the trail, victory would have been more likely with less deployment of US troops.

What we have to remember is that the unique, and only goal of Hanoi was to conquer Saigon, no matter the cost in human lives and the time needed to achieve this goal.

Rating:
Summary: The Unknow War to Save South Vietnam
Review: To most Americans, the war in Vietnam began in March 1965 with the arrival of the U.S. Marines across the beach at Danang...But a handful of young American civilians had entered the war five years' earlier...Thousands more followed as the entire American Governent was mobilized to "win in Vietnam"..until it became obvious only the South Vietnamese themselves could obtain a victory.. This book offers an insight into the efforts, the successes and the failures of these first Americans; and how we often were our own worst enemy...I had the privilege of serving as one of these men. PRELUDE TO TRAGEDY provides a unique insider look at how dedicated --and desperate--young Americans tried to head off the final outcome...Not a book for casual readers looking for combat stories, but a "must read" for any serious student of the Vietnam conflict.