E War That Keeps on Teaching

e War that Keeps on Teaching an article he wrote in the Los Angeles Lessons in Disaster: Times on November 12, 2009, just McGeorge Bundy and the Path weeks before Obama announced his to War in Vietnam decision to send additional troops to by Gordon M. Goldstein Afghanistan and outlined his strategy Times Books and Henry Holt, 2008, for the overall campaign: 300 pages. [General] McChrystal has predicted that without more troops and re- Reviewed by Shmuel Rosner sources, the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” within a year. ordon M. Goldstein, an expert Is his prediction of collapse justi- Gon international relations and fied?… Can Obama deploy existing the author of Lessons in Disaster: Mc- resources more effectively without George Bundy and the Path to War in substantial escalation?… Should the United States pursue a military strat- Vietnam, certainly deserves credit for a egy with a historically low success job well done. Not only did he write a rate—one that in Vietnam proved to fascinating story, not only is the story be open-ended in its duration? pertinent to decisions being made in Washington today, and not only has Questions of this sort, claims that story been passed from one ad- Goldstein, are “why presidents like ministration member to the next, but Obama study history”: In learning Goldstein even manages to proffer the lessons of the past, they may find what appear to be the lessons he him- answers to “the core questions the self has learned from the book, and commander in chief must resolve.” which he believes President Obama Yet Goldstein himself has yet to find ought to learn as well. these answers. Indeed, all he pro- Yet Goldstein’s conclusions are not vided in his Los Angeles Times article always so clear-cut. at, at least, is were further questions, to which his the impression one gets from reading book adds one more: Do the lessons • A / • McGeorge Bundy learned from decisions, debates, uncertainties, and America’s misadventure in Vietnam, crossroads along the path to America’s the regrets he harbors regarding his ill-fated campaign serve as the focal role in it, and the errors he admits to point of Goldstein’s book. e ques- making—do all these really have any tions on which he tries to shed light relevance for the current U.S. admin- plague the United States to this day: istration as it weighs its upcoming How did the U.S. force in Vietnam moves in a different country, against a swell from 16,000 “military advisers” different enemy, and in a very differ- during the Kennedy administration ent political milieu? to over half a million troops during Johnson’s? How did the war deterio- cGeorge Bundy’s biography rate from a limited armed conflict to M will be well known to those the wholesale slaughter that claimed who recall the Kennedy years or are the lives of nearly 60,000 American in any way familiar with twentieth- soldiers by the time it was brought to century U.S. history. Singled out at its ignominious end? a young age for his great academic e writing of Lessons in Disaster promise, Bundy was appointed dean is a story in itself. Bundy, the book’s of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at protagonist, was originally slated to Harvard at the tender age of thirty- be its author as well. When the mem- four. Having entered the White oirs of his colleague, former defense House along with the Kennedy ad- secretary Robert McNamara, were ministration, he stood at the center of published in 1995, Bundy decided a group of academics and intellectuals to offer his own reassessment of the who came to be known as “the best decision-making processes in which and the brightest,” or Kennedy’s “wise he had been involved during the early men.” For five years—first under years of the war. Seeking to analyze Kennedy and then, after his assassina- and reevaluate his motivations, he tion, under Lyndon Johnson—Bundy summoned Goldstein for a long series served as America’s national security of interviews. Unfortunately, Bundy adviser. passed away before the manuscript ose were undeniably turbulent was complete. Goldstein then went years, riddled with fateful events. from ghostwriter to primary author, Most notable, of course, was the and while he relied on their conversa- United States’ gradual descent into tions and material Bundy had made the morass of the Vietnam War. e available to him, the final product • A / • bears his own decisive imprint. In the be dumb” and Johnson “didn’t want end, the book may be about Bundy, to be a coward.” but it belongs to Goldstein. If the strength of the book lies in Bundy’s analysis of what took place t is easy to understand why Mc- within the White House’s inner INamara’s memoirs, In Retrospect: chambers, one of its main weaknesses e Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, is the impression that Bundy (and convinced Bundy the time had come Goldstein) is determined to present for him to write his own account of Kennedy in a much more positive the war. e former defense secretary light than Johnson. is is a facile had caused quite a stir by divulging exercise in the use of hindsight, how- that already during his time in office, ever, since Kennedy was assassinated he realized the United States could before he had a chance to make any not win in Vietnam. Nonetheless he real decisions about the war, leaving remained in his post, continuing to the hapless Johnson to be dragged in. dispatch forces and assign missions. e book portrays Bundy as having In November 1965, when a demon- shared many of the defense secretary’s strator torched himself to death out- assessments. “We failed to analyze side his window to protest the war, our assumptions critically,” writes McNamara admitted that he “shared McNamara, and Bundy, mulling some of his thoughts.” Another three over the months of critical decision years would go by before he would making in 1965, describes the prob- step down, however, and “McNama- lem in similar terms: “We found ra’s war,” as some reporters called it, ourselves arguing over a number and dragged on after he left office. not over a use—how many troops But Bundy does not believe that should go in, not what they should Vietnam was really McNamara’s do, not the military strategy that war. In his view—and herein lies would govern the deployment.” e one of the book’s most important consensus between the two is made insights—American wars are always explicit in a memorandum Bundy waged by the president. He is the one submitted to Johnson on January 27 who makes the final decisions, and he of that year, under the heading, “Re: is the one who seals destinies. Indeed, Basic Policy in Vietnam,” paragraph according to Bundy, the military six of which was to become particu- campaign in Vietnam developed as it larly significant. “We see two alter- did because “Kennedy didn’t want to natives,” writes Bundy, referring to • A / • McNamara and himself. “e first is wrote to himself in February 1996. to use our military power in the Far Even he seems uncertain but replies East and to force a change in commu- nevertheless: “e endurance of the nist policy. e second is to deploy all enemy.” In Vietnam of 1966—as our resources along a track of nego- in Iraq of 2004 and Afghanistan of tiations aimed at salvaging what little 2009—the enemy stubbornly refuses can be preserved with no major addi- to surrender in accordance with the tion to our present military risks.” timetable allotted by the U.S. inva- Such, in the end, is the funda- sion force. mental dilemma every leader faces Indeed, in the spring of 1965 in time of war, when he must decide it was plain to all that North Viet- whether to push for a military victory nam would not be broken quickly. at all costs or come to terms with his General William Westmoreland, gains (or losses) and seek a diplomatic commander of the American forces exit. Recently Obama faced that same in Vietnam, wrote, “I see no likeli- fork in the road when he struggled for hood of achieving a quick, favorable months—according to his detractors, end to the war”—unless, that is, the too many months—over the question United States resorted to nuclear of whether to send reinforcements to weapons. Undersecretary of State Afghanistan. George Ball wanted to withdraw American troops, based on his assess- any books had been written ment that no U.S. force, regardless M about the American involve- of its size, was capable of achieving ment in Vietnam before Bundy victory. Bundy rejected that proposal, decided to publish his memoirs— offering the president a choice of two meaning that very little in the way escalation plans instead. According of facts on the events of the period to the first, authored by Westmore- remains to be unearthed. Not sur- land, an additional 175,000 troops prisingly, then, this book contains no would be deployed in Vietnam; the great revelations. It quotes the same second, authored by Bill Bundy, Mc- documents that have already been George Bundy’s brother and assistant quoted, discusses the same episodes secretary of state, proposed a less that have already been discussed, aggressive reinforcement of just over mentions the same tragic heroes, the 80,000 troops. same age-old dilemmas. “What can By July, Johnson had to reach a we say is the most surprising?” Bundy decision, and against the advice of • A / • Undersecretary Ball, ordered the other newspapers and outlets.

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