“Americans were wary of official calls to intervene abroad in the cause of democracy and freedom… Democrats in particular questioned the need to contain communism everywhere around the globe and to play the role of the planet's policeman," said Harvard Sitikoff, professor of History at the University of New Hampshire. "Should I become President, I will not risk American lives by permitting any other nation to drag us into the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time through an unwise commitment that is unwise militarily, unnecessary to our security and unsupported by our allies." Thus spoke presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, in October 1960. However, in many ways, this early rhetoric foreshadowed Kennedy's presidential rhetoric on Vietnam. From 1961 to 1963, President Kennedy invoked idealistic terms to encourage Americans to view the conflict there as one small part of the larger struggle between freedom and communism. According to the President, the United States had to do whatever was necessary to defend Vietnam's freedom. Alternately, Kennedy explained that the situation in Vietnam was quite complicated and unique because of that nation's particular history, government, logistics, and legal relationship with the US. In view of these complexities, the President held that the United States must pragmatically pursue very special policies in order to fulfill its mission in Vietnam. President Lyndon B. Johnson took over after the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Just two days later ( November 24), Johnson said, "the battle against communism... must be joined... with strength and determination". The pledge came at a time when Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diem. On August 2, 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam's coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was reported two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that "those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish". The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war. In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not "... committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land". An undated National Security Council (NSC) publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on August 4. It had already been called into question long before this. "The Gulf of Tonkin incident", writes Louise Gerdes (a published author), "is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam." George C. Herring (professor of history at the University of Kentucky) argues, however, that Robert McNamara (then Defense Secretary) and the Pentagon "did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe." "From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong's ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964... Between 1961 and 1964 the Army's strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men." The numbers for US troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964. Dear Egyptian Mail readers, your contributions to and/or comments on articles published in this corner are welcome. We promise to publish whatever is deemed publishable at the end of this series. [email protected]
