Round Two: What the New Documents Show

Despite the controversy that surrounded each fresh disclosure of the Pentagon papers in the press, the stories revealed little new about America's role in Southeast Asia--although they continued to expose official miscalculation and deception. There were, however, some fascinating historical details and insights into events that, in broad outline at least, were already part of the public record. A chronology of highlights:

KENNEDY ON TROOP COMMITMENTS. During the early months of his Administration, President John F. Kennedy tried to maneuver the South Vietnamese into requesting assistance from American troops. Kennedy dispatched then-Vice President Johnson to Viet Nam in May 1961 with orders to "encourage" President Ngo Dinh Diem to ask for U.S. ground troops. Two months before, Kennedy had authorized secret raids against North Viet Nam. Diem resisted American pressure at first, arguing that the presence of American troops would violate the 1954 Geneva Agreements and open his administration to criticism as a puppet government. But in October. Diem made the solicited request, and Kennedy began a quiet, slow buildup of U.S. advisers.

THE DIEM COUP. The Pentagon papers show that the U.S. first conspired with South Vietnamese military plotters against President Diem, later backed away from an active role and, in the end, stood by and allowed the coup to take place. In the summer of 1963, officials in Saigon and Washington, D.C., debated whether or not to coax Diem into instituting reforms or to support a military coup. Kennedy and his advisers had come to view Diem and his brother, Secret Police Chief Ngo Dinh Nhu, as corrupt mandarins whose brutal oppression of Buddhists and political opponents was an embarrassment to the U.S.

Characteristically both Machiavellian and idealistic, the Kennedy Administration approved efforts to encourage a coup after Diem's attack on Buddhist pagodas in August, but when reservations over the success of an overthrow deepened, the U.S. withdrew its clandestine support of the generals and the coup was delayed. Concern heightened, however, with reports that Nhu might seek rapprochement with the North, which could have resulted in a neutralist government in Saigon. The plotting continued, and two days before Diem was ousted, McGeorge Bundy cabled Lodge:

ONCE A COUP UNDER RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP HAS BEGUN, IT IS IN THE INTEREST OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT THAT IT SHOULD SUCCEED. Lodge Was ordered not to intervene directly on either side; but without American support, Diem's government was doomed. At 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, Diem telephoned Lodge; it was the last contact any American had with Diem before his assassination the following day. WITHDRAWAL ADVICE. In an August 1963 session of the National Security Council, State Department Expert Paul M. Kattenburg recommended that the U.S. withdraw from Viet Nam completely. The suggestion was spurned by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; in the months that followed, the Diem coup and the deteriorating ability of the South Vietnamese to thwart the Viet Cong insurgency carried America into a deepening involvement in Southeast Asia. Kattenburg, then head of the State Department's working group on Viet Nam, told the NSC that popular disaffection with the Diem regime, coupled with growing Viet Cong control of the countryside, presented the U.S. with an untenable position in South Viet Nam. "In six months to a year, as people see we are losing the war, they will gradually go to the other side and we will be obliged to leave. At this juncture, it would be better for us to make the decision to get out honorably." Rusk, who directed the meeting in President Kennedy's absence, replied, "We will not pull out of Viet Nam until the war is won."

PREDICTIONS OF FAILURE. During late 1963 and early 1964, a year before President Johnson ordered bombing attacks on North Viet Nam, two secret study groups had decided that the tactic would not succeed. The groups worked independently of each other, but their conclusions were the same. An interagency task force headed by Assistant to the Under Secretary of State William H. Sullivan predicted that North Viet Nam would be able to withstand an aerial attack, and rather than breaking national morale, the bombing would stiffen North Vietnamese resistance.

Simultaneously, high White House and Pentagon officials periodically met for Strangelovian "Sigma Games" in the Pentagon. There, McGeorge Bundy, General Earle Wheeler and General Curtis LeMay, among others, devised ploy and counterploy for a bombing scenario with equally negative results. After 21 years of air strikes in the North, a follow-up survey by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze proved the predictions correct; but it was another year before the bombing was stopped. RUSSIAN SNUB. American diplomats tried unsuccessfully in 1965 to secure Soviet assistance in carrying word of a planned bombing halt to North Viet Nam. The message announced a brief suspension of bombing, but warned that after the pause "it would be necessary to demonstrate more clearly than ever that the U.S. is determined not to accept aggression without reply." Ambassador Foy Kohler carried the message to Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolai Firyubin with a request that the Soviets relay it to the North Vietnamese ambassador. Firyubin's reply: "I am not a postman." MCNAMARA AND BOMBING. Secretary of Defense McNamara quickly became disillusioned with the bombing strategy he had recommended to President Johnson and spent his last 16 months in office locked in bitter debate with military leaders in the Pentagon. He suggested contingency plans for sustained bombing of the North in March 1964: Operation Rolling Thunder, as the air strikes were code-named, began a year later. McNamara proposed two major escalations of the bombing during the following months, but the study reports a major shift in his thinking after an inspection trip to Viet Nam in October 1966: "Pulling back from his previous positions, he now recommended that the President level off the bombing at current levels and seek other means of achieving our objectives."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were adamant in their opposition: General Wheeler called McNamara's proposal "an aerial Dienbienphu." McNamara's disenchantment grew; by May 1967 he was advocating a political settlement in Viet Nam that would include non-Communist members of the National Liberation Front. A month after McNamara's resignation as Defense Secretary, President Johnson withdrew from the presidential race and ordered a partial bombing halt along the lines that McNamara had suggested earlier. TET AFTERMATH. In a secret report to President Johnson, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Wheeler presented a more pessimistic assessment of the effects of the 1968 Tet offensive than officials in Washington and Saigon had made available to the public. While echoing official statements that the Viet Cong forces were defeated in their attempt to overrun South Viet Nam, Wheeler admitted: "In short, it was a very near thing. To a large extent, the V.C. now controls the countryside. His determination appears to be unshaken. His recovery is likely to be rapid; his supplies are adequate.

He has the will and the capability to continue." The bleak prognosis, coupled with a request for a 206,756-troop increase, came at a time when military and civilian leaders within the Johnson Administration were characterizing Tet as an allied victory that had left the Viet Cong crippled and ineffective.

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