Lessons Learned From the Vietnam War Diplomatic

Lessons Learned From the Vietnam War

Diplomatic Relations

In terms of the diplomatic relations that the Johnson and Nixon Administrations had with representatives from North Vietnam and from South Vietnam, the two most appropriate words to describe those relations are failure and futility. But the failed pattern of diplomacy vis-a-vis Vietnam and Southeast Asia really began in 1954, when then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was sent by President Eisenhower to negotiate the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). When Dulles "…circumvented the provisions of the Geneva Accords" by unilaterally including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into the SEATO pack, Dulles was on thin ice in terms of American credibility (Moss 52). Dulles' subversion of the "letter and the spirit of the Geneva Accords" gave an open door to the U.S. intervention into Vietnam's affairs, an intervention which in hindsight was an absolute ethical and military disaster (Moss 53). Meanwhile fast-forward to early 1972 when Richard Nixon let the American public know that Henry Kissinger (Nixon's Secretary of State) had been secretly negotiating with North Vietnamese emissaries and proceeded to tell the nation what was being discussed in "secret" negotiations, which of course were no longer secret (Moss, 316). By opening his mouth regarding secret negotiations, Nixon "…did score domestic political points with the American public at the beginning of a presidential election year" (Moss, 316). One of the sticking points for the North Vietnamese was that Kissinger and Nixon refused to abandon President Thieu. Why would they abandon Thieu after the CIA helped rig the last election so Thieu remained in power? The Nixon strategy for negotiating peace was flawed from the beginning.

Presidential Leadership

Lyndon Johnson showed what a bully he could be when he pushed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through the U.S. Senate, insisting that U.S. military vessels had been attacked by North Vietnam. The build-up of American troops into Vietnam was Johnson's legacy and the failure to remove those troops (notwithstanding promises to end the war) was Nixon's. After Nixon's secret bombing campaign in Cambodia was published by The New York Times in May 1969, "…Nixon ordered wiretaps put on the phones of officials and journalists that he suspected" (Moss 279). Nixon also ordered wiretaps on the National Security Council staff and later he ordered a series of "dirty tricks" (including break-ins by the "plumbers"). These actions were of course unethical and criminal, and they were the most horrific examples in generations of how an American president resorted to evil, unconscionable strategies to hurt his "enemies" and keep his pathetically inept policies alive. Nixon actually considered using an atomic bomb on North Vietnam at one point, a sure sign that he was mentally unstable.

Cultural Social Contexts