The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam, II

  

The Normal Conspiratorial Politics of Vietnam, II

Peter Schultz

 

                  Again, from the book, JFK and Vietnam, by John M. Newman, about how the upper reaches of those in charge of the war in Vietnam conspired to defeat those who knew that the war was not going well at all, and certainly not as well as those like General Harkins wanted McNamara and Kennedy to believe.

 

                  According to the historian Andrew Krepinevich, “the efforts of Allen and Benedict to tell the truth about” the war’s “progress” was ignored by the Army Staff: “The negative reports given Rossen by advisors in the field were symptoms of an emerging revolt by Army advisors against the Army hierarchy’s view of how well the war was going and how well suited the methods of the Concept were against the insurgents.” [282, emphasis added]

 

                  Newman continues: “By ‘Concept,’ Krepinevich means the World War II conventional approach to war. The advisors’ arguments were ‘doomed to failure,’ … because this unwelcome message challenged the very foundations upon which the Army had constructed its approach to the war.” [282]

 

                  And, of course, this “emerging revolt” challenged the power of the Army hierarchy, represented by the likes of General Harkin, which was defined by their embrace of the Concept. Insofar as the Concept was deemed a failure, then so too would that hierarchy be deemed failures. And, so, that hierarchy was conspiring in order to maintain its power, its rule. Hierarchies, especially embedded hierarchies, conspire in order to maintain their power, even to the extent of conspiring against or conspiring with presidents and secretaries of defense. The Army hierarchy, infested with CIA agents, that conspired against JFK also conspired with LBJ in order to fight in Vietnam according to the Concept, that is, according to what was taken to be the best “conventional approach to war” by those best suited to employ it. As LBJ allegedly put it to the Chiefs: “Get me elected and then you can have your war.” That is, they could have their war in Vietnam as well as how they wanted to fight it.

 

                  And it bears pointing out that the advisors, in their “emerging revolt,” would also have to behave conspiratorially if they were to succeed. “Conspiracy is the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means.” So it goes.