The Best and the Brightest

by David Halberstam

  Starting in mid-1962, this had begun to be true on Vietnam, and there was soon a split between the American military (and Saigon) and the Administration over four main issues: napalm, defoliants, free fire zones and the introduction of jet planes instead of outmoded prop fighter-bombers. The military quickly lost on jets, but both Diem and Nhu supported and in fact pushed the American military on all these points, an important insight into the way they regarded their own peasantry, the lack of rapport and root and sympathy for them. The position of Diem, and particularly Nhu, was that these weapons were vital; they helped support the government, even though they inflicted great pain and death on the peasants. In fact, Diem and Nhu both specifically liked the use of excessive power. They still held to the mandarin psychology of the population’s responsibility to obey the government. An example of this mandarin thinking was the theory that the population would so hate the killing and the awesome force of its government that it would automatically respect the government even more, and would turn on the Vietcong. It was an attitude well out of date, for Indochina had been swept by twenty years of revolutionary excitement and fervor unleashed by the Vietminh and Vietcong, who had taught not Communism as the West knew it, but that a host of new possibilities, among them dignity and justice, were open to the peasants.

  That attitude of Diem and Nhu was an important reflection of the difference between the way they regarded Communism and the way the society did. The population was simply not that anti-Communist; it resented the force unleashed on it more than it feared the enemy it was allegedly being saved from. By the same token, a few years later the My Lai massacre would become a major political embarrassment to the Thieu government because it reflected the same attitude: in defense of the Saigon government’s own existence and in defense of the American anti-Communism, far too much fire power was inflicted on the reluctant Vietnamese people.

  If the military lost on jets, it pushed very hard on the other issues. At the beginning it was the only aspect of Vietnam that Kennedy really interested himself in. Vietnam had been a low-priority item in early 1962, but these issues of killing were different, and the President specifically commissioned both Hilsman and Forrestal to watch the military on them, to make sure that nothing slipped by. He was convinced, and rightly so, that the military were always trying to push things by him. And Hilsman and Forrestal found that for the first time McGeorge Bundy was a genuine help on Vietnam, a sign of the President’s very real interest. Bundy made sure the door to the President was always open, though often the points seemed small or even technical by the standards of the period; they were not global. Napalm was the first one. Harkins liked napalm, Diem and Nhu liked napalm; Harkins said it put the fear of God in the Vietcong. It was just one more weapon in the arsenal, the general said, and perhaps he was right; other weapons killed people just as dead. Harkins pushed hard for the virtually unrestricted use of it, but there was an element in it as an antipersonnel weapon that appalled Kennedy. It was a weapon which somehow seemed to be particularly antihuman, and he hated photographs of what it had done to people. He would talk with a certain fatalism to his staff about the pressure on him to use it. Now they want to use it on villages, he would say. They tell me that it won’t hurt anyone, but if no one will be hurt by it, what do they want it for?

  Then the military wanted defoliation, and once again the battle started. They wanted to start using it widely, for crop defoliation, but Kennedy held the line there; he did not want crops destroyed, no matter whose crops. Then they pushed for limited defoliation, just on lines of communication. They wanted to use it on the roads to make it harder for the enemy to ambush the troops. Our boys will be protected. Try it out, MACV said. Just a little bit, it will work and it will help win the war. Reluctantly, Kennedy considered giving partial permission, but he was advised by the State Department’s legal section that any such use was a violation of the Geneva Convention’s rules of war. So he said, well yes, but couldn’t they try it out in some deserted country . . . Panama . . . or Thailand . . . or somewhere else; did they really have to experiment right there in Vietnam with all those people around? Finally he approved a limited use of it, just as he approved a limited use of napalm in battles where the population was not nearby.

  Then Harkins argued for free fire zones, a place to drop unused bombs, because to carry those bombs back made it dangerous for the planes on landing. Kennedy asked his staff why they couldn’t drop the extra bombs in the sea, since the United States had lots of bombs and the loss of a few into the South China Sea would not be a problem for this country and probably wouldn’t hurt the ocean too much. But Harkins wanted the Iron Triangle, no people there; well, no friendly people, certainly, and eventually the military gained very limited free fire zones.

  Gradually Kennedy began to hate it, and some of the men around him began to sense that they were losing control, they were having to fight too hard for moderate positions, they were running hard just to stand still. The military could just announce a policy on areas where there was a vacuum, and it was the civilians who would then have to fight back. Even worse, the military could gain the upper hand by asking for too much, and then, like a shrewd bargainer, settle for a little less. Ask for broad defoliation, and get access rights. Ask for unrestricted napalm, and get limited napalm, which would not be too much of a problem because those boys from the White House wouldn’t be on every plane on every mission.

  The White House was beginning to see that the people who were in charge of the mission in Saigon had begun to take on the coloration of the commitment, they were more militant than Washington, more committed to Diem than Washington. As for Harkins, he took the position that it was, after all, not his viewpoint which was reflected, but that of the host government. We were just out here to help these little people, and since they wanted these weapons and they knew more about their country than we did, we should find out what they needed and then deliver it. Nolting was not inclined to challenge the military; indeed, he invariably went along with Diem in his demands. Thus when Kennedy repeatedly urged Forrestal to push Nolting to lean on the military, Forrestal would find a certain resistance, a reluctance to take on Harkins because that would mean taking on Diem. It became obvious that Nolting was not really acting as the President’s man in Saigon, but the problem was greater than that.

  Kennedy had made the commitment without much enthusiasm and with a good deal of misgivings. He had made it not so much because he wanted to, but because he felt he could not do less, given the time and the circumstances. But he was never in any deep sense a believer, whereas in Saigon, Harkins and Nolting had become true believers. They believed their own statements about victory, and they were not cynical. But the struggle over the issues of force was important on another level as well: as the Vietnam problem grew in importance within the bureaucracy and separated those who felt it was primarily a military problem and a question of force, from those who felt it was essentially a political problem, these questions of napalm, defoliation, free fire zones and jet planes would serve as an early litmus test as to which side the various members of the government would choose.

  The commitment was already operative, burning with a special fuel of its own—bureaucratic momentum and individual ambition—men let loose in Saigon and Washington who never questioned whether that something was right or wrong, or whether it worked or not. In government it is always easier to go forward with a program that does not work than to stop it altogether and admit failure. John Kennedy was fast learning that his personal and political interests were not necessarily the same as those of the thousands of men who worked in the government.

  Chapter Twelve

  In Saigon, the Military Assistance Command now functioned as a powerful, organized, disciplined establishment which could control the loyalty of its people and churn out facts, statistics and programs to suit the whim of its sponsors at the Pentagon. It had defeated the protests of its own best people, it had determined that things were going well
, that there was and would be optimism (at a Honolulu meeting in April 1963, Harkins was almost euphoric; he could not give any guarantees, but he thought it would all be over by Christmas. McNamara, listening to him, was elated—he reached over and reminded Hilsman that Hilsman had been there when it had all looked so black and that had been only eighteen months ago). So in early 1963 MACV had far more muscle than the comparatively frail civilian operation there; this had once bothered Ambassador Nolting but it no longer did, largely because he agreed with the conclusions of the military; he too saw the war through a military, not a political prism. In Washington, the dominant figure on Vietnam was not Dean Rusk, but Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara; it was he who dominated the action, the play, the terms by which success in Vietnam was determined. In the growing split between the civilians and the military over Vietnam, McNamara was allowed to be the referee. In contrast, the people from State who, like Harriman, were challenging the military’s estimates, were placed in the position of being adversaries.

  That McNamara’s role was major, that he was by default usurping the role of the Secretary of State, did not faze him. He was intelligent, forceful, courageous, decent, everything, in fact, but wise. Wherever there was a problem for his President, he would press on, the better to protect his superior, the better to take the heat. One reason he rushed forward on Vietnam was because he was haunted by the fact that he had performed so poorly during the Bay of Pigs episode (years later, this still remained something of a joke among Kennedy insiders, and after Edward Kennedy drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, among the many who rushed to the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport was McNamara; there he was greeted by the insiders’ good fellowship and jovial remarks about the arrival of the man who had handled both the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam).

  He became the principal desk officer on Vietnam in 1962 because he felt that the President needed his help. He knew nothing about Asia, about poverty, about people, about American domestic politics, but he knew a great deal about production technology and about exercising bureaucratic power. He was classically a corporate man; had it been a contest between the United States and Hanoi as to which side could produce the most goods for the peasants of South Vietnam, clearly we would have won. If it had been just a matter of getting the right goods to the right villages, we would have won; unfortunately, what we were selling was not what they were buying. This man, whose only real experience had been in dealing with the second largest automotive empire in the world, producing huge Western vehicles, was the last man to understand and measure the problems of a people looking for their political freedom. Yet he was very much a man of the Kennedy Administration. He symbolized the idea that it could manage and control events, in an intelligent, rational way. Taking on a guerrilla war was like buying a sick foreign company; you brought your systems to it. He was so impressive and loyal that it was hard to believe, in the halcyon days of 1963 when his reputation was at its height, that anything he took command of could go wrong. He was a reassuring figure not just to both Presidents he served but to the liberal good community of Washington as well; if McNamara was in charge of something he would run it correctly; if it was a war, it would be a good war.

  He could handle the military. That, of course, was the basis of his legend. Washington was filled with stories of McNamara browbeating the military, forcing them to reconsider, taking their pet projects away from them. Later, as his reputation dimmed and the defense budget grew (it was not just Vietnam, it was other projects as well), some of those who had been part of that Administration suspected that he had in no real way handled the military, but rather, that he had brought them kicking and screaming and protesting to the zenith of their power. At the very least, it turned out that he had controlled the military only as long as we were not in a real war and that the best way for civilians to harness generals was to stay out of wars. That wisdom would come later.

  When McNamara entered the Administration in 1961, he had let his deputy, Roswell Gilpatric, handle Vietnam, a sure sign that it was not an important issue. As the importance and complexity of Vietnam began to be evident, he took it over himself, wanting to protect the President, sure of his capacity to handle it. He then began his series of flying trips to Saigon, the on-the-spot inspections in search of the truth, a brisk, confident McNamara on the move, being televised, seeing people (the dissenters carefully screened out), gobbling up the false statistics of the day. His confidence became Washington’s confidence; the people in the capital knew that this able, driving man could handle the war, could handle the military machinery. The truth was that he had no different assumptions, that he wanted no different sources of information. For all his idealism, he was no better and perhaps in his hubris a little worse than the institution he headed. But to say this in 1963 would have been heresy, for at that point his reputation was impeccable.

  He was Bob, Bob McNamara, taut, controlled, driving—climbing mountains, harnessing generals—the hair slicked down in a way that made him look like a Grant Wood subject. The look was part of the drive: a fat McNamara was as hard to imagine as an uncertain one. The glasses straight and rimless, imposing; you looked at the glasses and kept your distance. He was a man of force, moving, pushing, getting things done, Bob got things done, the can-do man in the can-do society, in the can-do era. No one would ever mistake Bob McNamara for a European; he was American through and through, with the American drive, the American certitude and conviction. He pushed everyone, particularly himself, to new limits, long hours, working breakfasts, early bedtimes, moderate drinking, no cocktail parties. He was always rational, always the puritan but not a prude. And certainly not a Babbitt—if he could give up an earlier preference for academe to go into business, then at least he would not be a Babbitt. He sat there behind that huge desk, austere, imposing. A Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, with a budget of $85 billion a year, not to mention a generous supply of nuclear warheads at his disposal, was likely to be imposing enough, anyway.

  One was always aware of his time; speak quickly and be gone, make your point, in and out, keep the schedule, lunch from 1:50 to, say, expansively, 2 p.m., and above all, do not engage in any philosophical discussions, Well, Bob, my view of history is . . . No one was to abuse his time. Do not, he told his aides, let people brief me orally. If they are going to make a presentation, find out in advance and make them put it on paper. “Why?” an aide asked. A cold look. “Because I can read faster than they can talk.” There were exceptions to this, and one of the most notable was his interest in 1966 in an electronic barrier for Vietnam as a means of stopping the infiltration (and thus the rationale for bombing); suddenly this took top priority and General Alfred Starbird, who was in charge of it, had access to him at any time and could always brief him orally. The boredom he showed when the JCS came over once a week was in sharp contrast to the interest he had when General Starbird was talking. Those who wasted his time—except of course those above him—would feel his cold stare, and this included almost everyone, even General Maxwell Taylor. The first time Taylor went over to see McNamara at the start of the Kennedy years, Taylor arrived a little early. He stood outside the Secretary’s office while McNamara waited for the exact moment of their appointment. When it came, Taylor was held up on the phone for a few minutes because the White House had called him. So McNamara waited for Taylor and finally Taylor waited for McNamara a bit more, and then he went in and was given one of the icier treatments of his life.

  Time was of the essence, to be rationed and saved; time was not just money, it was, even more important, action, decisions, cost effectiveness, power. It became part of private Pentagon legend that if you really wanted to make a point with McNamara, the best way was to catch him on one of those long flights to Saigon or Honolulu, hours and hours aboard planes where there was nowhere else to go, no appointments waiting. There are those who remember well a scene in October 1966 when Daniel Ellsberg, who had already turned against the war, cornered McNamara on a pla
ne, and crowding over the Secretary, served him all the dovish papers that Ellsberg had written and saved up. There was a feeling of slight amusement on the part of one witness because of the almost obsessed manner of Ellsberg, a Dostoevskyan figure, and the fact that McNamara had no place to hide.

  McNamara, who was under such pressure, always tried to conceal it, to be cool, to control his emotions, though not always successfully, and there was somehow a price to be paid. He would, for instance, while he was in Detroit, grind his teeth in his sleep, wearing down the enamel until Marg McNamara realized what was happening and sent him to a dentist, who had them recapped (a New York dentist just so there would be no gossip in Detroit, gossip which might diminish his legend and thus his power; his legend was his power).

  Sometimes, to those around him, he seemed so idealistic as to be innocent. He never talked about power and he did not seem to covet it. Yet the truth was quite different. He loved power and he sought it intensely, and he could be a ferocious infighter where the question of power was concerned. Nothing could come between him and a President of the United States unless it was a potential President; thus his dilemma in 1967, when he was torn between loyalty to Johnson and Robert Kennedy. For all his apparent innocence, he had triumphed in the ferocious jungle of Detroit automotive politics, he was acutely aware of how to gain and hold power. It was not, however, a quality which surfaced regularly; if anything, part of his strength appeared to be his capacity to seem indifferent, to seem almost naÏve about questions of power. One Defense Department aide who had visualized McNamara as the idealistic civil servant was stunned when he caught a glimpse of the other side of McNamara. The aide had been offered a job at the White House, and when he told McNamara about it, he was advised to refuse it because, McNamara said, though he was offered high visibility and glory, the job lacked real power. McNamara thereupon continued with a startling and brilliant analysis, department by department in the government listing, which jobs carried power in which department and why, and which jobs, seeming to have real power, in reality lacked it. He was, it seemed, a little less innocent and idealistic than the aide had thought.