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Lyndon Johnson's War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam

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There is a memorable episode of "Seinfeld" where George Costanza, that master of mendacity, is coaching Jerry on how to pass a polygraph. His pearl of advisory wisdom: "remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."

This slender but rich volume by Larry Berman follows on his earlier work about American entry in South East Asia, "Planning a Tragedy." Ultimately Berman argues that Vietnam was, in fact, Lyndon Johnson's war. "In retrospect, the intelligence process was corrupted from above by an excessively paranoid president. It was Lyndon Johnson's war...Politics did not stop at the water's edge for Johnson. General Westmoreland was a pawn of a president fighting for his political life."

The baffling thing about this book is that I found it incredibly engaging and illuminating - and yet I could not see how Berman reached his conclusions on the nature and role of President Johnson in Vietnam in 1967-68.

What does it mean when your government genuinely believes something and they happen to be wrong? It's convenient and perhaps a bit cathartic to call them liars. But what if those officials sincerely believed their lies? Author Larry Berman does not demonstrate that LBJ and his key advisors knew that they were losing. McNamara came to the conclusion that the US Army strategy of attrition was bankrupt only in late 1967, and even then the president's most senior and thoughtful advisors, including Abe Fortas, Clark Clifford, Walt Rostow, William Westmoreland, ambassador Bunker, and others all disagreed with McNamara. The administration, for the large part, sincerely believed that they were fighting the good fight and were winning - it was the press that actively and fecklessly undermined the US war effort, they believed. Berman quotes a distressed Johnson complaining that "NBC and the New York Times are committed to an editorial policy of making us surrender." Indeed, Berman argues that the president was obsessed with what he perceived as unfair, almost treasonous treatment by the American press, while Ho Chi Minh, who was "a lot like Hitler" according to LBJ, was never taken to task for violating periods of truce and rejecting all peace overtures, including the San Antonio proposal under which the US would unilaterally halt all bombing of the north if Hanoi simply agreed to talk.

General Westmoreland's libel trial against CBS in the 1980s looms large in "Lyndon Johnson's War." So too does the CIA's special national intelligence estimate 14-3.67 (SNIE 14-3.67), which reported on the enemy order of battle in the South. The US Army intelligence forces in South Vietnam (MACV) under Westmoreland felt that local political defense forces should not be included in the order of battle; the CIA disagreed.

It was an important question for two reasons. First, the self-defense militias numbered roughly 150,000, so including them in the enemy order of battle could give the communists a paper strength boost of nearly 35%. Second, the US Army's strategy in 1967 was attrition, so demonstrating a clear and consistent decrease in enemy manpower was "the" metric of success. That said, Berman clearly demonstrates that Westmoreland never deceived the press or anyone else about the nature of the enemy order of battle statistics. In fact, on a number of occasions Westmoreland specifically noted that his numbers did not include local defense forces. It was reasonable to argue that only full-time offensive enemy forces - both North Vietnamese regular forces and dedicated South Vietnamese communist insurgents (Viet Cong) - should be counted in the friend vs. foe accounting. He made his case, including public caveats, and stuck to it.

The fundamental message that Berman conveys is that the perspective and opinion of the Johnson administration experienced a 180 degree turn between November 1967 and March 1968. The administration hosted two roundtables with the "wise men" in those months and their collective voice changed so drastically and dramatically that Johnson demanded to know exactly what had been briefed to them in March.

Another thing that struck me was just how thoughtful and temperate Lyndon Johnson could be and the probing nature of the questions he asked - and appeared to ask quite genuinely - of his senior advisors. These were not men with their heads in the sand. There was an early and clear understanding of Hanoi's war strategy - undermine the US national will - and a focus on asking the right questions.

A few people come off quite poorly in this book, and ironically given the author's argument the president is not one of them. First and foremost is Walt Rostow, the erstwhile national security advisor, who is portrayed as the uber-hawk who pressed the president to escalate at every turn. Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas is portrayed in a similarly negative light. Finally, the entire senior echelon of the uniformed service - Harold Johnson, Earl Wheeler, and William Westmoreland - is described as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals.

So why was it Lyndon Johnson's War according to Berman? He puts it rather succinctly this way: "Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in July 1965; he chose to accept General Westmoreland's attrition strategy; he chose not to mobilize his country for war; he chose and encouraged others to paint optimistic scenarios for the American public; he chose to hide the anticipated enemy buildup prior to Tet because, in an election year, he had hoped for a military miracle - perhaps Westmoreland would turn the tide when the enemy began its final desperate assault."

I can't say that I agree with all of the above but "Lyndon Johnson's War" is worthwhile nevertheless. Berman's historical narrative and his primary research are substantially better than his rather shaky historical interpretations.

The author uses the politicians own words to condemn them. Bob McNamara the best brighest and most able of all the Secrataries of Defense before or since really loused this war up, yet he was one of the first to realize, by mid 1967, that they war was a disaster and we needed to get the hell out, but the war, as berman convining argues, was lyndon johnson's not McNamara's Johnson's subordinates lied and cheated the american people into a false sense of confidence just because they wanted to please their boos, I think johnson did very many good things for america (Medicare, food stamps, college grants, evivil right, the list is quite long....) and yet he was such an egomaniac and wanted to desperately to prove america could do anything anywhere anytime that the North Vietnamese beat us at our own game, they proved to us that they could endure crushing losses and destruction anywhere, anytime, and still they would not give in. it was a faceoff and we blinked first,thus we lost the war fair and square, or rather Lyndon Johnson's war was a defeat for Johnson and thus for america, i think johnson saw himself and america as one, he personalized the war too greatly and once the war could not be won it killed him.I hope we never get involved in anything quite like that war ever again, true we killed millions of enemy soldiers, Viet Cong, and even innocent civilians but the Vietnamese were able to win through shear force of will. the sooner we accept the fact that we lost the better