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Uva-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) ‘Whose Vietnam?’ - ‘Lessons learned’ and the dynamics of memory in American foreign policy after the Vietnam War Beukenhorst, H.B. Publication date 2012 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Beukenhorst, H. B. (2012). ‘Whose Vietnam?’ - ‘Lessons learned’ and the dynamics of memory in American foreign policy after the Vietnam War. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:29 Sep 2021 6. George H.W. Bush, the Vietnam War, and the creation of a metaphor. To briefly summarize, as I illustrated in the previous chapters, the memories of the Vietnam War had a considerable impact on American foreign policy throughout the 1980s. This legacy of Vietnam is often connected to the term ‘Vietnam syndrome,’ popularized by Ronald Reagan during the 1980 election, although the previous chapters also demonstrated how the term itself can be called, to use the words of Marilyn Young, “a zone of contested meaning.”1 Reagan popularized the term ‘Vietnam syndrome,’ and his successor George H.W. Bush claimed to have “kicked the syndrome once and for all” after his victory in the Gulf War of 1991.2 Between Reagan and Bush, the ‘syndrome’ and the memories of the lost war had been debated, contested, and institutionalized, yet no consensus was reached on the ‘right’ lessons that should be learned or the ‘correct’ way of applying these lessons. As a result of this ambiguity, the claim that Bush had ended ‘the syndrome’ was premature. 3 As the first chapter demonstrated, it is important to understand Ronald Reagan’s perception of the Vietnam War in order to explain his ideas on its legacy in foreign policy. Similarly, to understand how his successor dealt with the legacy of Vietnam we need to begin by asking the question: What did George H.W. Bush mean when he talked about the Vietnam War and the ‘Vietnam syndrome’? As in the chapter on Reagan, the emphasis will lie on those ideas relevant to foreign policy, although the legacy of Vietnam in international affairs is impossible to completely disconnect from the domestic legacy. As I shall argue, Bush’s concern with the domestic aftermath of the Vietnam War is particularly relevant to understanding the influence these memories had on his foreign policy. The background of Bush’s ideas on the Vietnam War will be addressed in this chapter. The impact that these ideas had on Bush’s foreign policy, in particular his handling of the Gulf War, will be argued in the next chapter. 1 Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 314. 2 “Excerpts from Bush News Conference,” The New York Times, March 2, 1991, p 5. 3 In this dissertation, I will refer to George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, as President Bush, or simply Bush. His son, George W. Bush the 43rd president, will be addressed specifically as his son if he is mentioned. 202 Bush’s Vietnam: George H. W. Bush was the son of the successful Wall Street banker and senator Prescott Bush and grandson of the industrialist Samuel Bush, patriarch of the Bush dynasty. Born in 1924, Bush grew up in wealth among the East-coast establishment of Connecticut during the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Depression, often regarded as a defining experience for Bush’s generation, did not hit the Bush family very hard. To a much larger degree, Bush’s worldview was shaped by the Second World War. According to his own memoir, after Pearl Harbor, Bush “could hardly wait to get out of school and enlist.”4 He joined the Navy’s flight-training program on the day he turned eighteen and was sent to the Pacific. In the letters he wrote at the time, Bush expressed a strong sense of duty and responsibility. On June 26, 1944, he wrote that he wants to be home soon, but “at last I feel that I am at least doing my part and when I get back I’ll have no feeling of guilt about being in the States.”5 Bush’s war experience was unlike Reagan’s, whose nearsightedness excluded him from duty overseas. Reagan’s ideas on the Vietnam War were also shaped largely by his perception of the Second World War, but Reagan participated in public relations for the Army, creating educational and training films. George Bush, however, was sent abroad, and while at sea, fellow soldiers were killed or went missing in action. One day, Bush’s airplane got shot down, forcing him to parachute out and wait for rescue under threat of capture by the Japanese. The experience shaped his ideas on warfare and also earned him a life-long reputation as a genuine war hero. Back in the United States, Bush went to Yale, and subsequently moved to Texas in the late 1940s to venture into the oil business. After a successful career as an entrepreneur, he turned to politics and in 1966 got elected to represent Texas’ 7th district in the United States House of Representatives. He would remain in the House for four years. During those years, Bush was active as a representative on a national platform during the height of American domestic upheaval over the Vietnam War and civil rights issues. A fundamental aspect of Bush’s position on the Vietnam War was that duty, honor, and loyalty to your country were crucial and unconditional, and therefore the 4 Undated letter Bush to parents, August to October 1942, George H. W. Bush, All the Best. George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), 23. 5 Letter Bush to parents, June 26, 1944, Ibid., 45. 203 American military operation in Vietnam should be supported. Bush reiterated that position consistently during every stage of his career, as a baseline to his thinking in general and to military affairs specifically. It was not only a position that coincided with the general Southern conservative opinion, but was also anchored in a strong personal conviction. At the end of his political life, after his presidency, Bush wrote in his memoir: “Everything I learned from history, from my father, Prescott Bush, everything I valued from my service in the US Navy reinforced the words ‘duty, honor, country.’”6 Also, in an interview with David Frost at the time of the Vietnam War, Bush remarked that his own war experience shaped his opinion on “what Vietnam was all about.”7 Yet this patriotic foundation did not mean that Bush held a completely uncritical view of the Vietnam War. Like his political mentor, conservative senator Barry Goldwater, Bush criticized Johnson’s Vietnam policy for not being strong enough but also for the enlargement of the federal government and the increased deficit spending it entailed.8 His arguments against the Vietnam War stemmed from the same political philosophy that convinced conservatives to oppose civil rights legislation: a large increase in government regulation restricts vital freedoms in an unhealthy way. Despite these objections, Bush never really attacked President Johnson on his Vietnam policy for several reasons. For one, it was not his style. Even if Bush, in his first steps on the political stage, mimicked the positions of the popular Goldwater, Bush’s political style was very different from that of the explosive Arizona senator. Bush would never feel comfortable with rhetorical fireworks or ideological infighting, favoring a more moderate, philosophical approach to politics.9 Also, in the district where his constituents lived, the Vietnam War was politically a much smaller issue than for instance civil rights. In a district that was generally supportive of the war out of patriotic motivations, not much political credit could be expected from venturing into politically volatile tides over what can be considered as minor objections to a war 6 George H. W. Bush, A World Transformed, ed. Brent Scowcroft (New York: Knopf, 1998), 17. 7 As cited in: Herbert S. Parmet, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (New York: Scribner, 1997), 116. 8 Peter Schweizer and Rochelle Schweizer, The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 187. 9 According to biographers Schweitzer, Bush was: “raised and schooled in an America that he saw as decidedly nonideological.” However, Bush was raised in wealth and in a decidedly conservative environment so I object to the neutrality of Bush that the Schweizers claim. See Ibid. 204 that he generally supported himself. Moreover, even though the Republican Bush opposed the Democrat Johnson on many topics, he considered it politically prudent to support a fellow Texan on the Vietnam War. Bush was convinced that “getting along with each other” was an essential part of good politics, and he considered the fierce personal attacks on Johnson over Vietnam highly condemnable from a personal point of view.10 Bush respected Johnson as a politician and liked him as a Texan.
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