Choosing War
| Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam | |
| Author(s) | Fredrik Logevall |
|---|---|
| Publisher | University of California Press |
| Publication date | 1999 |
| Pages | 529 |
| ISBN | 0226075974 |
Frank Logevall’s Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam presents a different perspective on the Vietnam War and adds greatly to the ongoing debate among Vietnam War era historians on the question if the war could have been prevented. Logevall’s only concern is the eighteen-month period during which the Johnson administration made the fatal decision to escalate the Vietnam War. With a global and domestic research base, Logevall illustrates powerfully that the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, despite opportunities for negotiations and allied opposition, deliberately picked the path to war.
Between August 1963 and February 1965, the Johnson administration made the decision for war, refusing all possibility to pull out or accept a negotiated settlement. Logevall blames Johnson’s resilience, based on his fear of losing Vietnam and thus invoking both the Munich Syndrome and Lose of China, for the escalation. In contrast to many Cold War studies, which narrowly focus on U.S. foreign policy, Logevall brings in both the Cold War allies and enemies to contextualize the growing engagement in Vietnam. Logevall argues that, despite the isolation of the United States internationally, the rigid decision making process and the lack of a vocal opposition made it difficult for contingency plans to emerge.
Progressing chronologically, Logevall starts with Charles de Gaulle’s critical opinion about the unnecessary U.S. involvement in South Vietnam and the need for a peaceful settlement. With a downturn in relations, U.S. policy makers worried that the South Vietnamese could start to negotiate with the North or that the North could understand U.S. hesitance as weakness and commit more troops to the South. Besides France, even Great Britain preferred to stay out of the conflict and privately challenged the United States. Except for the United States, everybody else was ready to talk. Ironically, the countries chief diplomat, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, did not belief in diplomacy.
Logevall is reluctant to join the voices that say Kennedy would have pulled out of Vietnam; instead, he believes that Kennedy would have acted similar to Johnson. The counterfactual argument aside, Logevall argues that Johnson, Robert S. McNamara, and Rusk silenced mid-level opposition that urged for negotiations. With the Diem and Kennedy assassinations, both countries had a changed situation: the U.S. a stubborn provincial leader and South Vietnam ever-increasing chaos.
Nevertheless, the Johnson administration had to project a different image until the November elections. The ambassador in Vietnam, Henry C. Lodge, worried more about neutralization and the French schemes to end the war than about political and military collapse. In order to prevent losing the war, Johnson contemplated a bombing campaign against North Vietnam. British opposition helped to postpone the air strikes. In the spring 1964, even McNamara grew pessimistic, but he continued to oppose negotiations.
Johnson remained committed to escalation but wanted to avoid such a policy before the election. The incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin gave Johnson the opportunity to get wide ranging powers from Congress. Logevall implies that the United States had staged the Tonkin Gulf incident to get a reason to escalate the war and bomb the North Vietnamese. During the entire Congressional debate about the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the government continued to deceive Congress about the situation.
Early in 1964, the Johnson administration had set the day to escalate the war for January 1, 1965. With the deadline approaching fast, the government needed plans. Mid-level officials thought that a Communist Vietnam would resemble a Titoist Yugoslavia and might actually benefit the United States. Johnson could have pull out with allies opposed to war, the public unsupportive, and Vietnam’s anti-Americanism.
With a further escalation of the war in Vietnam on the horizon, Johnson tried to prevent a public and Congressional debate about the strategy his government pursued. Again, the situation in early 1965 offered opportunities for a pull out with the South Vietnamese having another military coup. As much as Tonkin was a way to get extensive military authority, the North Vietnamese attack on Pleiku gave an excuse to expand the United States’ role in Vietnam. However, all signs remained against war, except in the inner circles of the Johnson administration. Logevall concludes that despite Johnson inheriting a huge problem, he had still all options open. He determined to select war.
Logevall’s book is an important challenge to the established Vietnam War historiography. Where historians have long debate whether going to war was a Cold War or imperialist scheme, Logevall suggests that war was solely a decision taken by the Johnson administration, which ruled out any other solutions to settle the conflict. With his breath of research, Logevall breaks new and important ground for scholars to contextualize the war.
