america's longest war

Vietnam

Herring, George C. 1996. America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950 -- 1975. New York: McGraw-Hill.

George C. Herring has laid out a comprehensive history of America's involvement in Vietnam. In addition to describing the events as they unfolded in Vietnam, Herring has provided detailed information of how the military operated and interacted with both presidents and Congress, and how U.S. foreign policy affected events. He also addresses how President Lyndon B. Johnson's management approach to the Vietnam War affected how it was conducted and details about the controversy over the war among the American people.

Thus, this book is more than a simple chronological list of events. Woven throughout, Herring shows the reader the larger context within which the war took place. While Johnson is often blamed for the escalation of the war, resulting in a rising tide of anger among Americans against the war, the history of the war is far more complex than a simple issue of trying to prevent one small southeast Asian country from turning to communism. All major events are placed in their historical contexts, making the larger issue of how the problems with Vietnam evolved over time more understandable.

The book opens with an ironic twist: Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the first Vietnamese rebels against French rule of that country, announced the country's independence from France by quoting The United States Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal" (p. 3). Herring explains the United States' enduring interest in Vietnam, an interest dating as far back as World War II, and credits our first involvement with Vietnam as being based on racial stereotypes rather than real knowledge of the country. This, plus our relationship with France as that of an ally, encouraged the U.S. government to provide military aid for France as it attempted to put Ho Chi Mihn's revolution down. In the early fifties, as the struggle continued, Eisenhower's administration worried that Vietnam was not ready for independence and would be vulnerable to a communist takeover, something intolerable to them during the Cold War with the U.S.S.R.

As the supposedly temporary partition of Vietnam continued, the United States encouraged the development of South Vietnam as a noncommunist country. Military leaders in North Vietnam, however, did not accept this partition as permanent, and began working hard to unify the country under their leadership. By the time John F. Kennedy became President, insurgency in South Vietnam was growing significantly. Johnson's administration inherited the Vietnam problem from Kennedy and believed, as Kennedy had, that our ability to contain communism in southeast Asia was vital to our ability to support our Japanese ally. Herring judges Lyndon Johnson a failure as Commander-in-Chief and describes him as intruding on military decisions on a day-to-day basis, but failing to establish a larger strategic and political vision. In fact, Herring uses the words "impulsive" and "flamboyant" to describe Johnson's actions regarding Vietnam, and also points to what he considered an almost obsessive need on Johnson's part to keep secrets. According to Herring, Johnson wanted to control every aspect of the war, but at the same time desperately wanted public approval.