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DID NIXON INTEND TO WIN THE VIETNAM WAR?

I was perusing historian David Kaiser’s blog History Unfolding, when I came across a remarkable claim regarding Richard Nixon, based in part on Robert Dallek’s new book, Nixon and Kissinger:Partners in Power:

“Nixon and Kissinger, to begin with, came into office determined to win the Vietnam War. In an odd parallel to the current Administration—which decided that 9/11 totally discredited the Middle East policies of the last forty years—they evidently believed that the whole experience of the Johnson Administration had nothing whatever to teach them. Nixon, who saw himself far superior both to his two immediate predecessors and to any successor on the horizon, was convinced that Johnson had failed to win the war only because of a lack of will, the quality on which he prided himself the most. One omission from Nixon and Kissinger (which is more of a biographical study than a policy history) is any discussion of NSSM-1, a massive study of Vietnam which Kissinger commissioned upon taking office. It concluded that nothing the US had done had significantly weakened the enemy’s ability to fight, and that no agency of the US government could foresee the day when the South Vietnamese alone could deal with the enemy. A bold and rational leader must have concluded that the United States had to scale down its objectives to end the war, but Nixon did not. He and Kissinger spent about a year vainly trying to get the Soviet Union to end the war by pressuring the North Vietnamese, and then (as Nixon publicly admitted) tried to gain an advantage with the kind of “decisive” action which, Nixon thought, Johnson had avoided—the invasion of Cambodia. Meanwhile, political and military considerations (the latter involving the state of the armed forces) impelled Nixon to withdraw troops, but he continued to believe that he could make the North give in to our terms—an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam—by unleashing an all-out bombing attack whenever he chose. And historian Jeffrey Kimball was right: Nixon was determined not to make peace without giving such a campaign a chance, as eventually, in December 1972, he did—at the cost of 15 American B-52s, and without in the least improving the terms that Kissinger had already negotiated.”

For readers who are unfamiliar, Dr. Kaiser is a historian of the Vietnam War era, with special expertise in the Kennedy administration. I have not read the Dallek book yet, though I certainly intend to now ( I did anyway but David’s post has advanced it well up my reading list) as the assertion conflicts sharply with what has previously been known about Nixon’s strategic thinking at the time.

Nixon was one of the first major political figures to (gingerly to be sure) try to put South Vietnam into the context of it’s actual geopolitical value to the United States, which was small, in a major speech at Bohemian Grove and then in a Foreign Affairs article ” Asia after Vietnam”. Much of the discourse Nixon used about the war among his intimates involved his administration’s ( or America’s) “credibility” or “toughness” in the eyes of Communist adversaries in Hanoi, Beijing and Moscow. Having read innumerable documents and memoirs I’m hard-pressed to believe that Nixon ever thought the Vietnam War was ” winnable” and not an albatross that was hindering him from accomplishing his larger strategic goals, especially the China opening. Nixon desperately wanted to avoid outright defeat in Vietnam, certainly, and to use his handling of the war to send signals elsewhere but throwing his administration, heart and soul into winning the war was never on the table.

Nevertheless, Dallek has new material, according to Kaiser, for a new argument. It needs to be scrutinized objectively to see how or if Dallek broadens our understanding of the war and of Richard Nixon’s administration. This is how historical truth advances, one document, one argument, one book at a time.

I look forward to reading it.

TRY YOUR HAND AT BEING NIXON’S ARCHIVIST

Dr. Maarja Krusten, the fomer archivist for the Nixon tapes collection at The National Archives and Federal historian, has an excellent article up at HNN, “How Hard Is the Job of Nixon Archivists? You Decide.“. Her article is worth reading for two reasons:

First, Krusten explains the dilemna faced by archivists trying to do their job when faced with political pressure from influential public figures:

“Former U.S. Archivist Robert Warner once told me that “The Archives faces enormous political pressure but never admits that it does.” Whether they deal with stand-up guys or bullies, archivists face them alone.

It was not the only recent loss of a file. As the Senate prepared to hold hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to be Chief Justice, White House lawyers in 2005 screened files at NARA’s Reagan Presidential Library. They were left alone with documents at the Library because, as Berger also had said, they needed privacy while making phone calls. Soon, thereafter, archivists discovered that a Roberts file about affirmative action was missing. The IG was unable to establish whether the affirmative action file had been removed from the Library or merely misfiled by NARA staff.”

Secondly, she offers a test to readers to try to correctly classify a memo that is, I can attest, vintage Richard Nixon:

“How would you classify the December 4, 1970 memo? (If you wish, you first may look at a couple of paragraphs about NARA’s statutes and regulations in a brief description here.)

(3) document is governmental, relates to Presidential duties, and should be released during the President’s lifetime.”

Read the whole article here.

REVIEWING VAN CREVELD

I have a review of The Changing Face of War posted at Chicago Boyz.

EXTENDING THE CONVERSATION

One of the most pleasant aspects of blogging for me is receiving high quality feedback from readers or other bloggers. Oddly, it’s impossible to predict which post is going to produce a high volume of comments or links so it is even nicer when a post that I feel is important strikes some readers in the same way. Even moreso as the feedback came from across the political spectrum

I’d like to highlight the responses to the recent “Applied History” post:

From Art Hutchinson at Mapping Strategy:

Art is a premier strategic thinking consultant with Cartegic Group who specializes in scenario planning. He doesn’t post all that frequently, so I was very pleased to find that he had delved deeply into the topic of “Cognitive Maps of Future History“:

“What’s needed to turn the seeming surprise of today’s urgent corporate decision into an historically rooted, deeply contextualized choice?

As the saying goes: “there’s nothing new under the sun”.

From Nonpartisan, the guiding spirit of the up and coming, left of center, group blog ProgressiveHistorians in the “Friday Open Thread ” Nonpartisan welcomed Stewart Brand’s historical call to arms:

“At ProgressiveHistorians, we’ve been advocating this sort of direct policy action on the part of historians since our founding, but it’s nice to see the liberal icon who founded the Whole Earth Network taking up our cause. If there’s one thing that unites everyone at this site, I think, it’s their agreement with some portion of Brand’s thesis. It’s encouraging how many of us see the meaning in this logical extension of our profession.”

In the comments section of ” Applied History” I am indebted to Shane Deichman, Managing Director of The Institute for Technologies in Global Resilience and Federal Historian Dr. Maarja Krusten, formerly of The National Archives, for their thoughtful observations, such as:

Deichman:

“Policymaking, on the other hand, is not about asserting truths — it is about influencing action. Therefore it is an inherently social and, dare I say, “complex” phenomenon that defies linear, reductionist logic. So it is perfectly understandable (even acceptable) for the policymaker to “cherry pick” conclusions that support their objectives (e.g., yellow cake from Nigeria; hostile naval action in the Gulf of Tonkin; the fictitious “Tenth Army” in WW II). This is why I believe so few historians are apt to get involved with policymaking.”

Krusten:

“Many thanks for posting this interesting essay on a subject that deserves more attention than it usually receives among academic historians.

Since your posting centers on applied history and policy, you might find interesting this article by Victoria Harden, “What Do Federal Historians Do?”

( Note to aspiring history PhD’s – make friends with a professional archivist or academic librarian *before* you begin your dissertation. The cites they can pull off the top of their heads on the most obscure topics imaginable are stunning. They are to historians what historians are to the general public)

Thanks again for the excellent feedback!

APPLIED HISTORY

Last week, HNN ran a somewhat critical piece by John Elrick on Colonel H.R. McMaster and Frederick Kagan entitled “The Two Historians Who Are Playing a Key Role in “The Surge“. The primary hook for HNN’s readers was the aspect of two historians (albeit one a serving military officer) playing an influential role in developing administration policy:

“Like Kagan, H.R. McMaster holds a PhD in military history, earning his from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Col. McMaster was commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq from 2005-2006 and is currently an advisor to the head of US forces, General David Petraeus. McMaster belongs to a group of “warrior intellectuals” who, according to Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post, “make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.”

Both Kagan and McMaster have taught history at West Point. The former was a Professor at the US Military Academy from 1995 to 2005, while the latter taught there from 1994 to 1996.”

Traditionally, relatively few historians have been deeply engaged in shaping current policy or political affairs. Bernard Lewis, the eminent Mideast scholar, is frequently cited as having been a deep influence on the Bush administration policy makers who favored the invasion of Iraq. Sean Wilentz was a vigorous defender of President Clinton during impeachment hearings and leading historians like Richard Pipes have sometimes quietly served tours of duty on the staff of the National Security Council. Few have ever gone so far as did the recently deceased Arthur Schlesinger, jr. and become members of a President’s White House inner circle. Most historians though, keep their distance from current policy.

The acclaimed scientist, environmentalist and futurist Stewart Brand, whose ideas presaged the internet-based information revolution has called on historians to practice “Applied History“

“All historians understand that they must never, ever talk about the future. Their discipline requires that they deal in facts, and the future doesn’t have any yet. A solid theory of history might be able to embrace the future, but all such theories have been discredited. Thus historians do not offer, and are seldom invited, to take part in shaping public policy. They leave that to economists.

Done wrong, Applied History could paralyze public decision making and corrupt the practice of history — that’s the danger. But done right, Applied History could make decision making and policy far more sophisticated and adaptive, and it could invest the study of history with the level of consequence it deserves.”

Brand has a solid point. Historians have a useful skill-set to offer policy makers. As a discipline, history requires the cultivation of a very large cognitive map that serves both as a knowledge base as well as a starting point for recognizing patterns and analogies. Historians spend much time assessing the validity and reliability of data and discerning cause and effect. Like scientists ( perhaps the only time when historians are like scientists), historians attempt to isolate causation from mere correlation. When policy makers have to deal with uncertainty, historians can reduce that uncertainty at the margins by providing the context in which to make logical extrapolations or to apply the specfic skills of psychologists, economists, game theorists or other specialized analysts.

Historians, of course, are just as liable to bias as anyone else, so no pretensions to omniscience should be aired. However, all things being equal, historians at least can provide a better-informed bias than if their contribution were absent from the policy process.