The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

60 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL not prevail. This was partly because of the nature of the conflict. It was both a revolutionary war fought at knife-point during the night within the villages. It was also a main force war in which technology couldmake a genuine difference. Both sides had trouble devising tactics that would be suitable for each type of warfare. But we and the South Vietnamese hadmore difficulty with this than the other side. We also had trouble with excesses here: when we made it “our war,” we would not let the South Vietnamese fight it; when it again became “their war,” we would not help them fight it. Ironically, we prepared the South Vietnamese for main force warfare after 1954 (anticipating another Korean-type attack), and they faced a political war; they had prepared themselves for political warfare after 1973, only to be faced with a main force invasion 20 years after it had been expected. Domestic Political Attacks Our diplomacy also suffered in the process, and it may take us some time to bring things back to balance. We often found that the United States could not sustain a diplomatic position for more than a few weeks or months before it came under attack from the same political elements that had often advocated that very position. We ended up negotiat- ing with ourselves, constantly offering concession after concession while the North Vietnamese changed noth- ing in the diplomatic objectives and very little in their diplomatic positions. It was only in secret diplomacy that we could hold anything approaching a genuine dialogue, and even then the North Vietnamese could keep us under constant public pressure. Our diplomacy often degener- ated into frantic efforts to find formulas that would evoke momentary support and would gloss over obvious differ- ences between ourselves and the North Vietnamese. The legacy of this remains to haunt us, making it difficult for us to sustain a diplomatic position for any length of time, no matter how obdurate the enemy, without becoming subject to domestic attack. In the end, we must ask ourselves whether it was all worth it, or at least what benefits we did gain. I believe the benefits were many, though they have long been ignored, and I fear that we will only now begin to realize how much we need to shore up our positions elsewhere once our position in Vietnam is lost. We may be compelled to support other situations much more strongly in order to repair the damage and to take tougher stands in order to make others believe in us again. I have always believed, as have many observers, that our decision to save South Vietnam in 1965 prevented Indo- nesia from falling to communism and probably preserved the American presence in Asia. This not only means that we kept our troops. It also means that we kept our economic presence as well as our political influence, and that our friends—includ- ing Japan—did not feel that they had to provide for their own defense. When we consider the impact of what is now hap- pening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been 10 years ago when the communist movement was still widely regarded as a monolith destined to engulf us all. Therefore, in our public statements I believe [that] we can honorably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterize our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster. I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politically, were not in vain. We paid a high price, but we gained 10 years of time and we changed what then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum. I do not believe our soldiers or our people need to be ashamed. n Note the “OBE” (Overtaken By Events) scrawled over this cover sheet. Henry Kissinger did not initial it, and there is no indication that President Gerald Ford saw the memo. COURTESYOFGERALDR.FORDLIBRARY