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To be fair, no Project 100,000 is probably better for everyone involved. That and not firing Westmoreland were the two worst things McNamara ever did.
AtlanticFriend: One of the things I respect about Bush 41 is how he handled his loss to Bill Clinton in 1992. He accepted it, treated Clinton as his equal, wrote him a very gracious letter welcoming him to the White House, and even invited Dana Carvey (who made fun of him on SNL) to the White House to entertain the White House staff. Completely different from how Donald Trump handled his loss to Joe Biden.
On this side of the pond, we hear a lot about Russia and...well...Russia.
I really like John McCain as well. Unfortunately for him, he received the Republican Presidential nomination at a bad time. Eight years of Bush 43, the 2008 economic crisis, and the meteoric rise of Barack Obama made winning the Presidency very difficult for McCain if not impossible. As for a suitable "spiritual heir" surge in the coming decade, I am not sure who it could be if anybody. The GOP of today has wrapped itself too tightly around Trump.
El Pip: That's true. If people are suffering economically and Forbes is living the high life, it won't take long for the President to look out of touch with ordinary people.
I plan on talking about the Forbes Administration's cracking down on draft dodging. To say it is controversial might be an understatement.
Historically LBJ was criticized by conservatives for not doing enough to deal with the Vietnam War protestors. Here I imagine Forbes will be criticized by liberals for being overzealous in dealing with the Vietnam War protestors.
Kurt_Steiner: I appreciate that.
H.Appleby: In TTL 1965, Robert McNamara is still serving as the President of Ford Motor Company. I don't plan on doing anything with him.
After not posting anything for two years , I have finally been able to write an update. Hopefully the next update - which will be about Vietnam - won't take two years to write as well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Barents Sea Incident
For navigator Captain Stuart McKeon, it was just another day at the office. In his case, the “office” was an RB-47H spy plane. It was January 25th, 1965, and McKeon and his five crew mates boarded their plane, a Boeing B-47 Stratojet modified for electronic intelligence missions, for yet another flight over the Barents Sea. Covering 540,000 square miles, the Barents Sea made up the coasts of Norway and the Soviet Union and was strategically important in the Cold War. It was through this portion of the Arctic Ocean that Soviet nuclear submarines stationed in Murmansk made their way into and out of the North Atlantic Ocean. To monitor these submarines, the United States Air Force based RB-47H spy planes in England which could fly out to the Barents Sea and gather intelligence on their locations. Being crammed with bulky electronics made the plane cramped and uncomfortable for the six-man crew who had to be in it for missions lasting 12 hours. On January 25th, McKeon’s plane took off from its’ air force base in Oxfordshire county and headed towards the Barents Sea on a routine mission. Having done this several times already, the crew was expecting this mission to be no different than the previous ones.
Ten days later on February 4th, McKeon and co-pilot Captain Harry Phillips found themselves being paraded before the cameras in Moscow as inmates of Lubyanka prison. How they ended up here depended on who you asked. According to the Forbes Administration, the plane had been performing weather reconnaissance in international airspace near the Kola Peninsula when they were shot down unprovoked by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 single-seat, twin jet engine fighter aircraft. According to Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, the Americans had been spying on them and their plane had been in Soviet airspace; thus the shoot down was justified. Of the six-man crew, only McKeon and Phillips survived. The bodies of three of the four crew members killed were never found. After ending up in the water, McKeon and Phillips were rescued by a Soviet fishing trawler and were immediately taken to Lubyanka prison for their incarceration. Khrushchev’s announcement (which was largely an angry tirade against the United States) on February 4th that they were in his country’s custody deepened tensions between the two superpowers – which were already tense. The Americans demanded that McKeon and Phillips be released at once; the Soviets refused. The Soviets demanded that the Americans admit and apologize for their routine aerial reconnaissance flights over their country as a condition for their release; they refused. Washington and Moscow became locked in a Cold War stand-off, with neither side willing to budge an inch on their demands. As for the families of McKeon and Phillips, they were left to wonder and worry if they would ever see their loved ones again.
(One of the jail cells at Lubyanka prison, where Americans Stuart McKeon and Harry Phillips were held)
For President Malcolm Forbes, the Barents Sea Incident and the stand-off that followed was not at all how he wanted to start his dealings with the Soviet Union. He had come into office interested in improving relations with the Soviets, greatly encouraged by a 41-year-old German-accented Harvard professor named Henry Kissinger. Originally born in Germany during the highly volatile Weimar Republic period, Kissinger immigrated to the United States in 1938 and served in the Army during World War Two. After the war he went to Harvard where he excelled academically – graduating Phi Beta Kappa – and established himself as an expert on foreign policy. Kissinger’s intellect attracted the attention of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who recruited him to serve as his foreign policy advisor for his unsuccessful 1960 bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. After Rockefeller’s second bid in 1964 was torpedoed by public outrage over his decision to leave his wife and children for a married woman who had children of her own, Kissinger deserted him and offered Forbes his services. He did so largely out of personal ambition; Kissinger wanted to directly influence US foreign policy and the then-New Jersey Governor looked very likely to not only win the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination but also the general election against Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
Despite Kissinger’s ties to Rockefeller (whom Forbes didn’t get along with at all – to the point that he completely excluded him from his subsequent Administration), Forbes received him with an open mind. They had a thoughtful discussion on foreign policy, after which Forbes hired him to be his foreign policy advisor. What sealed the deal was that Kissinger was a proponent of Realpolitik, a German word meaning “realistic politics”. Under Realpolitik, foreign policy would be based not on ideological or moral premises but on pragmatic considerations of given circumstances. Kissinger believed it was important for America to deal with the world as it was and not how she wanted to see it. This was especially the case with the Soviet Union. “The time has come,” he declared, “That we stop talking about containing [the Soviets] and start talking to them on an equal basis.”
Kissinger believed that the threat the Soviet Union posed to other nations in the early years of the Cold War had passed and that she could now be engaged with in a peaceful and practical manner. Forbes agreed. Unlike his predecessor President Henry M. Jackson (1961-1965) who viewed the Soviet Union as being – in the words of Ronald Reagan – the “Evil Empire” who couldn’t be trusted in negotiations, Forbes felt that the potential was there for rapprochement with the Communist superpower. “There has to be some sort of basis in which our two countries can live together without blowing each other up.”
Another reason Forbes was interested in seeking a relaxation of US-Soviet tensions was to counter the Republic of China. Under the leadership of President Chiang Kai-shek, China was aggressively seeking to establish herself as the dominant economic, military, and political power in Asia. This made her a dangerous threat to America’s interests in Asia and the Western Pacific. By improving relations with Moscow, Forbes believed it would free him to better deal with Nanjing (who was far more willing to directly confront Washington than Moscow). “I would much rather have one enemy at a time than two.”
Following his landslide election in November 1964, Forbes instructed Secretary of State-designate Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to find an advisory position for Kissinger at the State Department. “He has some very good ideas,” the President-elect stated, “And I want to turn those ideas into reality.”
With Kissinger installed at the State Department, the Forbes Administration set about establishing a new policy in dealing with the Soviets: détente. A French word meaning “relaxation”, détente comprised of several elements including:
(US nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean during 1962)
Since any treaty his Administration reached with the Soviets would have to be ratified by the United States Senate, Forbes invited a bipartisan group of key Senators to the White House in the early days of his Presidency to discuss negotiating a treaty. Although consulting Congress about major initiatives was something Forbes regularly did, he went into this particular meeting thinking about President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and his failure to get the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 following the end of World War One. After leaving Republican and Democratic Senators alike completely out of the loop during the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson refused to compromise with a group of Republican Senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts who were willing to support ratification of the treaty provided that they could attach reservations to it clarifying how the treaty would be implemented in the United States. Wilson fully expected the Senate to give their consent to the Treaty of Versailles without giving their advice; he got rejection instead. Regarding the 28th President as an example of what NOT to do, Forbes sat with the Senators in the Cabinet Room, giving them his thoughts about a nuclear test ban treaty and listening to their feedback. The President viewed the treaty as being the first step, one that would make it possible for more comprehensive negotiations down the road. “We will not end the possibility of nuclear war overnight,” he said, “But by putting limits on the testing of nuclear weapons, we can start to move away from that possibility.”
The limits of course had to be mutual. The President opposed unilaterally stopping nuclear testing, believing that doing so while the Soviet Union continued to perform tests would undermine US national security. Nor did he view a “ban the bomb” treaty as being realistic. Nuclear weapons were a fact of life; instead of getting rid of them outright, he just wanted to rein them in (which he thought would be more palatable to those who possessed them). Some of the Senators responded warmly to a nuclear test ban treaty while others were dubious that the Soviet Union would go along with it. When the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked what would happen if the Soviets refused to negotiate, the President answered simply, “We will just have to keep at it.”
Of all the Senators in the room, Democratic Minority Leader Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota seemed to be the most enthusiastic supporter of a nuclear test ban treaty. Arms control was an issue near and dear to his heart. He had been frustrated by Jackson’s refusal to negotiate a treaty and now here was a President who wanted to seriously pursue arms control. Ecstatic, Humphrey promised Forbes at the meeting that he would wholeheartedly back any agreement he reached with the Soviets concerning this issue. The Democratic Senate Minority Leader was sincere in his vow to give the Republican President his unconditional bipartisan support on arms control, even though it meant taking it off the table as a campaign issue when Humphrey ran against Forbes in the 1968 Presidential election.
(Although they had sharp disagreements on several issues like the Vietnam War and Medicare, Forbes and Humphrey found common ground on other issues like arms control and civil rights)
On March 5th, Lodge arrived back in Washington from Geneva, Switzerland where he had met his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko to discuss the ongoing standoff as well as the nuclear test ban treaty. Walking into the Oval Office, the Secretary of State got straight to the point:
“Mr. President, they don’t want to negotiate.”
According to Gromyko, the Soviets could not trust the Americans to negotiate in good faith when they had been caught spying on them and were refusing to apologize for it. That was the official reason. The real reason the Soviets didn’t want to negotiate at the time had to do with the balance of power...which did not favor them. For all of Khrushchev’s tough guy talk about "burying" the United States, the Soviets were acutely aware that the Americans had the advantage in the Cold War arms race. The USA possessed more missiles, more nuclear submarines, more nuclear weapons, and more strategic bombers than the USSR did and had a greater ability to field those weapons than the Soviets did. The United States had ringed the Soviet Union with bases from which to launch strikes deep into the country. The Soviet Union on the other hand couldn’t set up a base anywhere in the Western Hemisphere from which they could directly strike the United States. The Soviets knew that if a nuclear war was to break out, they would bear the worst of it. They were therefore reluctant to enter into arms control talks. In their view, it would simply lock into place their military inferiority. Disappointed that the Soviets didn’t want to come to the negotiating table, Forbes asked:
“Is there any good news?”
Lodge answered that there was one piece of good news, if you could call it that. Although Khrushchev was angry at the United States over the Barents Sea Incident, he had instructed his Foreign Minister to let Lodge know that he would keep the door open for a possible summit meeting with the new American President. Lodge was ambivalent about it because he wasn’t sure a summit meeting with the Soviet General Secretary would make much of a difference at this point. The other side seemed to be dug in. Forbes disagreed with his Secretary of State. If he could sit down with Khrushchev and talk to him face-to-face, then perhaps they could find a breakthrough. Remembering what he had said to the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the prospect of the Soviets refusing to negotiate, Forbes said that a summit meeting was something “we will just have to try. We cannot give up on this, Henry. It is too important.”
(Andrei Gromyko proved to be durable as the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving in that post from Khrushchev's ascendance as General Secretary in 1957 until reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 and promptly fired him)
This was not at all how the President wanted to deal with the Soviet Union. He had wanted to ease Cold War tensions; the Barents Sea Incident exacerbated those tensions instead. Now the Soviets were refusing to come to the negotiating table. Without arms control, Forbes felt that the rest of détente couldn’t be achieved. Compounding matters, two Americans were now sitting in a Moscow prison with no sign that they would be released any time soon. Unwilling to risk more American lives, on February 21st the President quietly ordered the suspension of aerial reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union. He directed that reconnaissance of that country be performed exclusively by spy satellites. Technology had advanced a great deal since the United States launched the world’s first manmade satellite into Earth’s orbit in May 1957. There were now satellites in orbit – Telstar for example – which were improving communications and helping meteorologists make better weather forecasts. The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan became the first to use satellites to telecast the games internationally instead of being taped for later broadcast. Space probes entered the mix in 1962 when NASA launched the Mariner program to make scientific observations of Venus and Mars. What mattered to Forbes the most though were spy satellites, which could obtain the same information that spy planes provided but without putting lives at risk. Unlike spy planes, spy satellites couldn’t be intercepted and shot down. As a result of the Barents Sea Incident, spy satellites went from being a secondary source of intelligence-gathering for the Americans to being the primary source (although spy planes continued to be used, particularly in Asia).
(In July 1965, Mariner 4 became the first space probe to reach Mars. As it flew by the planet, Mariner 4 transmitted back to Earth close-up pictures of a lifeless Martian surface which gave scientists a better understanding of the Red Planet)
On this side of the pond, we hear a lot about Russia and...well...Russia.
I really like John McCain as well. Unfortunately for him, he received the Republican Presidential nomination at a bad time. Eight years of Bush 43, the 2008 economic crisis, and the meteoric rise of Barack Obama made winning the Presidency very difficult for McCain if not impossible. As for a suitable "spiritual heir" surge in the coming decade, I am not sure who it could be if anybody. The GOP of today has wrapped itself too tightly around Trump.
El Pip: That's true. If people are suffering economically and Forbes is living the high life, it won't take long for the President to look out of touch with ordinary people.
I plan on talking about the Forbes Administration's cracking down on draft dodging. To say it is controversial might be an understatement.
Historically LBJ was criticized by conservatives for not doing enough to deal with the Vietnam War protestors. Here I imagine Forbes will be criticized by liberals for being overzealous in dealing with the Vietnam War protestors.
Kurt_Steiner: I appreciate that.
H.Appleby: In TTL 1965, Robert McNamara is still serving as the President of Ford Motor Company. I don't plan on doing anything with him.
After not posting anything for two years
, I have finally been able to write an update. Hopefully the next update - which will be about Vietnam - won't take two years to write as well.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Barents Sea Incident
For navigator Captain Stuart McKeon, it was just another day at the office. In his case, the “office” was an RB-47H spy plane. It was January 25th, 1965, and McKeon and his five crew mates boarded their plane, a Boeing B-47 Stratojet modified for electronic intelligence missions, for yet another flight over the Barents Sea. Covering 540,000 square miles, the Barents Sea made up the coasts of Norway and the Soviet Union and was strategically important in the Cold War. It was through this portion of the Arctic Ocean that Soviet nuclear submarines stationed in Murmansk made their way into and out of the North Atlantic Ocean. To monitor these submarines, the United States Air Force based RB-47H spy planes in England which could fly out to the Barents Sea and gather intelligence on their locations. Being crammed with bulky electronics made the plane cramped and uncomfortable for the six-man crew who had to be in it for missions lasting 12 hours. On January 25th, McKeon’s plane took off from its’ air force base in Oxfordshire county and headed towards the Barents Sea on a routine mission. Having done this several times already, the crew was expecting this mission to be no different than the previous ones.
Ten days later on February 4th, McKeon and co-pilot Captain Harry Phillips found themselves being paraded before the cameras in Moscow as inmates of Lubyanka prison. How they ended up here depended on who you asked. According to the Forbes Administration, the plane had been performing weather reconnaissance in international airspace near the Kola Peninsula when they were shot down unprovoked by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 single-seat, twin jet engine fighter aircraft. According to Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, the Americans had been spying on them and their plane had been in Soviet airspace; thus the shoot down was justified. Of the six-man crew, only McKeon and Phillips survived. The bodies of three of the four crew members killed were never found. After ending up in the water, McKeon and Phillips were rescued by a Soviet fishing trawler and were immediately taken to Lubyanka prison for their incarceration. Khrushchev’s announcement (which was largely an angry tirade against the United States) on February 4th that they were in his country’s custody deepened tensions between the two superpowers – which were already tense. The Americans demanded that McKeon and Phillips be released at once; the Soviets refused. The Soviets demanded that the Americans admit and apologize for their routine aerial reconnaissance flights over their country as a condition for their release; they refused. Washington and Moscow became locked in a Cold War stand-off, with neither side willing to budge an inch on their demands. As for the families of McKeon and Phillips, they were left to wonder and worry if they would ever see their loved ones again.
(One of the jail cells at Lubyanka prison, where Americans Stuart McKeon and Harry Phillips were held)
For President Malcolm Forbes, the Barents Sea Incident and the stand-off that followed was not at all how he wanted to start his dealings with the Soviet Union. He had come into office interested in improving relations with the Soviets, greatly encouraged by a 41-year-old German-accented Harvard professor named Henry Kissinger. Originally born in Germany during the highly volatile Weimar Republic period, Kissinger immigrated to the United States in 1938 and served in the Army during World War Two. After the war he went to Harvard where he excelled academically – graduating Phi Beta Kappa – and established himself as an expert on foreign policy. Kissinger’s intellect attracted the attention of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who recruited him to serve as his foreign policy advisor for his unsuccessful 1960 bid for the Republican Presidential nomination. After Rockefeller’s second bid in 1964 was torpedoed by public outrage over his decision to leave his wife and children for a married woman who had children of her own, Kissinger deserted him and offered Forbes his services. He did so largely out of personal ambition; Kissinger wanted to directly influence US foreign policy and the then-New Jersey Governor looked very likely to not only win the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination but also the general election against Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota.
Despite Kissinger’s ties to Rockefeller (whom Forbes didn’t get along with at all – to the point that he completely excluded him from his subsequent Administration), Forbes received him with an open mind. They had a thoughtful discussion on foreign policy, after which Forbes hired him to be his foreign policy advisor. What sealed the deal was that Kissinger was a proponent of Realpolitik, a German word meaning “realistic politics”. Under Realpolitik, foreign policy would be based not on ideological or moral premises but on pragmatic considerations of given circumstances. Kissinger believed it was important for America to deal with the world as it was and not how she wanted to see it. This was especially the case with the Soviet Union. “The time has come,” he declared, “That we stop talking about containing [the Soviets] and start talking to them on an equal basis.”
Kissinger believed that the threat the Soviet Union posed to other nations in the early years of the Cold War had passed and that she could now be engaged with in a peaceful and practical manner. Forbes agreed. Unlike his predecessor President Henry M. Jackson (1961-1965) who viewed the Soviet Union as being – in the words of Ronald Reagan – the “Evil Empire” who couldn’t be trusted in negotiations, Forbes felt that the potential was there for rapprochement with the Communist superpower. “There has to be some sort of basis in which our two countries can live together without blowing each other up.”
Another reason Forbes was interested in seeking a relaxation of US-Soviet tensions was to counter the Republic of China. Under the leadership of President Chiang Kai-shek, China was aggressively seeking to establish herself as the dominant economic, military, and political power in Asia. This made her a dangerous threat to America’s interests in Asia and the Western Pacific. By improving relations with Moscow, Forbes believed it would free him to better deal with Nanjing (who was far more willing to directly confront Washington than Moscow). “I would much rather have one enemy at a time than two.”
Following his landslide election in November 1964, Forbes instructed Secretary of State-designate Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. to find an advisory position for Kissinger at the State Department. “He has some very good ideas,” the President-elect stated, “And I want to turn those ideas into reality.”
With Kissinger installed at the State Department, the Forbes Administration set about establishing a new policy in dealing with the Soviets: détente. A French word meaning “relaxation”, détente comprised of several elements including:
- Expanding economic opportunities between the two nations
- Promoting educational and cultural exchanges
- Greater dialogue between the two governments, including regular summit meetings
- Negotiations over arms control
(US nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean during 1962)
Since any treaty his Administration reached with the Soviets would have to be ratified by the United States Senate, Forbes invited a bipartisan group of key Senators to the White House in the early days of his Presidency to discuss negotiating a treaty. Although consulting Congress about major initiatives was something Forbes regularly did, he went into this particular meeting thinking about President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) and his failure to get the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 following the end of World War One. After leaving Republican and Democratic Senators alike completely out of the loop during the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson refused to compromise with a group of Republican Senators led by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts who were willing to support ratification of the treaty provided that they could attach reservations to it clarifying how the treaty would be implemented in the United States. Wilson fully expected the Senate to give their consent to the Treaty of Versailles without giving their advice; he got rejection instead. Regarding the 28th President as an example of what NOT to do, Forbes sat with the Senators in the Cabinet Room, giving them his thoughts about a nuclear test ban treaty and listening to their feedback. The President viewed the treaty as being the first step, one that would make it possible for more comprehensive negotiations down the road. “We will not end the possibility of nuclear war overnight,” he said, “But by putting limits on the testing of nuclear weapons, we can start to move away from that possibility.”
The limits of course had to be mutual. The President opposed unilaterally stopping nuclear testing, believing that doing so while the Soviet Union continued to perform tests would undermine US national security. Nor did he view a “ban the bomb” treaty as being realistic. Nuclear weapons were a fact of life; instead of getting rid of them outright, he just wanted to rein them in (which he thought would be more palatable to those who possessed them). Some of the Senators responded warmly to a nuclear test ban treaty while others were dubious that the Soviet Union would go along with it. When the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked what would happen if the Soviets refused to negotiate, the President answered simply, “We will just have to keep at it.”
Of all the Senators in the room, Democratic Minority Leader Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota seemed to be the most enthusiastic supporter of a nuclear test ban treaty. Arms control was an issue near and dear to his heart. He had been frustrated by Jackson’s refusal to negotiate a treaty and now here was a President who wanted to seriously pursue arms control. Ecstatic, Humphrey promised Forbes at the meeting that he would wholeheartedly back any agreement he reached with the Soviets concerning this issue. The Democratic Senate Minority Leader was sincere in his vow to give the Republican President his unconditional bipartisan support on arms control, even though it meant taking it off the table as a campaign issue when Humphrey ran against Forbes in the 1968 Presidential election.
(Although they had sharp disagreements on several issues like the Vietnam War and Medicare, Forbes and Humphrey found common ground on other issues like arms control and civil rights)
On March 5th, Lodge arrived back in Washington from Geneva, Switzerland where he had met his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko to discuss the ongoing standoff as well as the nuclear test ban treaty. Walking into the Oval Office, the Secretary of State got straight to the point:
“Mr. President, they don’t want to negotiate.”
According to Gromyko, the Soviets could not trust the Americans to negotiate in good faith when they had been caught spying on them and were refusing to apologize for it. That was the official reason. The real reason the Soviets didn’t want to negotiate at the time had to do with the balance of power...which did not favor them. For all of Khrushchev’s tough guy talk about "burying" the United States, the Soviets were acutely aware that the Americans had the advantage in the Cold War arms race. The USA possessed more missiles, more nuclear submarines, more nuclear weapons, and more strategic bombers than the USSR did and had a greater ability to field those weapons than the Soviets did. The United States had ringed the Soviet Union with bases from which to launch strikes deep into the country. The Soviet Union on the other hand couldn’t set up a base anywhere in the Western Hemisphere from which they could directly strike the United States. The Soviets knew that if a nuclear war was to break out, they would bear the worst of it. They were therefore reluctant to enter into arms control talks. In their view, it would simply lock into place their military inferiority. Disappointed that the Soviets didn’t want to come to the negotiating table, Forbes asked:
“Is there any good news?”
Lodge answered that there was one piece of good news, if you could call it that. Although Khrushchev was angry at the United States over the Barents Sea Incident, he had instructed his Foreign Minister to let Lodge know that he would keep the door open for a possible summit meeting with the new American President. Lodge was ambivalent about it because he wasn’t sure a summit meeting with the Soviet General Secretary would make much of a difference at this point. The other side seemed to be dug in. Forbes disagreed with his Secretary of State. If he could sit down with Khrushchev and talk to him face-to-face, then perhaps they could find a breakthrough. Remembering what he had said to the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the prospect of the Soviets refusing to negotiate, Forbes said that a summit meeting was something “we will just have to try. We cannot give up on this, Henry. It is too important.”
(Andrei Gromyko proved to be durable as the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving in that post from Khrushchev's ascendance as General Secretary in 1957 until reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 and promptly fired him)
This was not at all how the President wanted to deal with the Soviet Union. He had wanted to ease Cold War tensions; the Barents Sea Incident exacerbated those tensions instead. Now the Soviets were refusing to come to the negotiating table. Without arms control, Forbes felt that the rest of détente couldn’t be achieved. Compounding matters, two Americans were now sitting in a Moscow prison with no sign that they would be released any time soon. Unwilling to risk more American lives, on February 21st the President quietly ordered the suspension of aerial reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union. He directed that reconnaissance of that country be performed exclusively by spy satellites. Technology had advanced a great deal since the United States launched the world’s first manmade satellite into Earth’s orbit in May 1957. There were now satellites in orbit – Telstar for example – which were improving communications and helping meteorologists make better weather forecasts. The 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan became the first to use satellites to telecast the games internationally instead of being taped for later broadcast. Space probes entered the mix in 1962 when NASA launched the Mariner program to make scientific observations of Venus and Mars. What mattered to Forbes the most though were spy satellites, which could obtain the same information that spy planes provided but without putting lives at risk. Unlike spy planes, spy satellites couldn’t be intercepted and shot down. As a result of the Barents Sea Incident, spy satellites went from being a secondary source of intelligence-gathering for the Americans to being the primary source (although spy planes continued to be used, particularly in Asia).
(In July 1965, Mariner 4 became the first space probe to reach Mars. As it flew by the planet, Mariner 4 transmitted back to Earth close-up pictures of a lifeless Martian surface which gave scientists a better understanding of the Red Planet)
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It lives! Welcome back my dear sir, you are most welcome. And what a return it is - spies, explosions, satellites and KGB prisons. All the ingredients for a good Bond Film, from which you have produce a chapter about a test ban treaty. Good work.
The crew of that RB-47 were lucky to get caught by the KGB (not often one says that), life expectancy when dropped into the Barents Sea in Winter is measured in minutes. Given they aren't going to get that badly treated, the Soviets have to keep them in fairly good condition for when they trade them back, things could be worse for them, though I doubt it is a pleasant experience.
Forbes is being fairly rational about all this so I wish him success. Arms Control probably is a step too far at this point for the reasons mentioned, but a test ban treaty is surely a decent start. Carefully phrased it could even be a way to flatter the Soviet egos, get them to agree that they understand nuclear weapons so well that there is no need for them to do further tests.
In any event I do hope we see you more around the place after this and that it doesn't take quite so long for us to (finally!) get to Vietnam. If you carry on being this majestically paced I may need to hand you my title of Lord of Slower-than-real-time, and that would never do!
The crew of that RB-47 were lucky to get caught by the KGB (not often one says that), life expectancy when dropped into the Barents Sea in Winter is measured in minutes. Given they aren't going to get that badly treated, the Soviets have to keep them in fairly good condition for when they trade them back, things could be worse for them, though I doubt it is a pleasant experience.
Forbes is being fairly rational about all this so I wish him success. Arms Control probably is a step too far at this point for the reasons mentioned, but a test ban treaty is surely a decent start. Carefully phrased it could even be a way to flatter the Soviet egos, get them to agree that they understand nuclear weapons so well that there is no need for them to do further tests.
In any event I do hope we see you more around the place after this and that it doesn't take quite so long for us to (finally!) get to Vietnam. If you carry on being this majestically paced I may need to hand you my title of Lord of Slower-than-real-time, and that would never do!
- 1
It's back! It's back! So excited. This feels so 2008 - @El Pip writing about aircraft engines, me plodding on with British politics, and you with this masterful effort. I nominated you, last year, for special recognition - and I would also commend the works of @DensleyBlair - his superb writing reminds me of yours.
With thanks to @Le Jones, both for his kind words about my writing and (more importantly) for making me aware that masterpiece this was back, I will happily sign on for the ride from this point on. Admittedly I’ve never sat down and read the whole thing front to back, but I’ve dipped in and out over the years and frankly anything Cold War on these boards will always capture my attention. Interested to see how things go from here!
Kurt_Steiner: After two years of no updates, it feels good to post an update again. I see the Paradox forum underwent a face-lift while I was gone.
El Pip: Thank you very much, El Pip. I see you got a new AAR that I will check out. I also see you finished your Slovakia AAR. I got to read it when I get a chance and see how T&T fared (probably poorly. It is Slovakia after all).
What do you even feed American prisoners in a KGB prison?
Since Forbes historically never became Governor of New Jersey nor President of the United States, I am left to figure out what kind of President he might have been. He strikes me as being a moderate, pragmatic Republican. Not too politically liberal and not too politically conservative.
Historically JFK pushed for arms control and the best he could do in 1963 was a limited nuclear test ban treat. Since Scoop Jackson historically believed that you couldn't trust the Soviets at the negotiating table, I couldn't see him pursuing arms control like Kennedy did. That means Forbes has to start the process from scratch.
You're in luck: the next update is all about Vietnam. I even have screenshots of the Vietnam mod!
I couldn't take your Lord of Slower-than-real-time title, El Pip. You're the master; I am just the humble student.
Le Jones: Thank you. I appreciate that.
DensleyBlair: Considering this AAR has 108 pages, I completely understand that you have never sat down and read the whole thing front to back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inheriting Vietnam
When Malcolm Forbes became President of the United States in January 1965, there were 140,000 American combat soldiers stationed in South Vietnam. The vast majority of those troops – described by one journalist as “rock-and-rollers with one foot in the grave” – had been deployed there by Forbes’ predecessor Henry M. Jackson to help the South Vietnamese Army fight the North Vietnamese Army and the North Vietnam-backed Viet Cong guerrillas who were invading their country. Ho Chi Minh, the Communist President of North Vietnam, was determined to defeat South Vietnam – which he regarded as being nothing more than America’s puppet – and reunify the two countries under his rule. In the conflict that followed, Ho found himself an unexpected ally: Chiang Kai-shek, the authoritarian President of the Republic of China. China in the 1960s was flexing its’ muscles on the international stage, showing the world that it was a major power to be reckoned with and that the days of kicking the Chinese around were over. A major component of China’s aggressive foreign policy was establishing a sphere of influence in the former French colony of Indochina (comprising of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia).
(President Chiang Kai-shek, seen here presiding over the celebration of Double Ten Day in Nanjing in October 1966. The Republic of China in the 1960s was a paternal autocratic state that had big plans and a militant dictator determined to make those plans a reality)
China’s first move in Indochina came in July 1961 when it invaded Laos on the grounds of restoring order in a country that was in the midst of a civil war. When China’s military intervention formally ended in April 1962, Laos had been transformed into a puppet state with a collaborationist Laotian General installed as the new Head of State by the Chinese. While securing Laos, the Chinese turned their attention towards the situation in Vietnam. Ho viewed the division of Vietnam into two countries as being unacceptable and waged war against the US-allied South Vietnam with the goal of reuniting the two Vietnams under his Communist rule. Chiang regarded South Vietnam as being nothing more than America’s foothold in the region...a foothold that needed to be eliminated if Indochina was to be exclusively a Chinese sphere of influence. Operating on the principal that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, Nanjing recognized Hanoi as being the only legitimate Vietnamese government and Chiang traveled to Hanoi to sign a treaty of friendship with Ho. The new Sino-North Vietnamese alliance, like the alliance between the Allies and the Comintern during World War Two, was driven more by having a mutual enemy than by shared ideology. Chiang himself wasn’t a Communist; rather, he was an opportunist who was willing to get into the proverbial bed with the Communists if it meant strengthening China. He viewed a united Communist Vietnam as being a better partner for China than a divided Vietnam. While Ho welcomed Chiang’s backing publicly, privately he didn’t trust him. Chiang had a reputation as a shameless backstabber who was willing to throw anyone under the bus for the sake of his own power. While he created the impression that he was a true friend of Hanoi, the weary North Vietnamese leader couldn’t be certain if his Chinese counterpart was genuine or was simply putting on a facade. That he was dealing with Ho with a sharpened knife behind his back.
(President Ho Chi Minh, who was distrustful of his new ally Chiang Kai-shek)
The Jackson Administration viewed China’s move into Indochina through the prism of the Domino Theory. Formulated by President Adlai Stevenson in 1953, the Domino Theory held that if one country fell to the enemy, others would follow right behind it. With Laos gone, if North Vietnam succeeded in taking over South Vietnam, Cambodia would be ripe for the pickings and Thailand would then find China knocking on her front door. It was to stop the dominoes from falling in Indochina that Scoop made the fateful decision in April 1962 to sharply escalate America’s military involvement in Vietnam. From less than 1,000 at the start of 1961, the number of soldiers swelled to 140,000 in four years. To command the US forces in South Vietnam, the President chose General Maxwell Taylor. Taylor had experience in fighting Communists, having led the US military mission in Yugoslavia during the 1950s which helped the pro-US royalist regime defeat a Communist insurgency. Taylor arrived in Saigon armed with a three-prong plan to:
While America was scoring victories on the battlefield, there was a major problem hindering the effort to build a strong South Vietnam: the South Vietnamese government. To say that Saigon was incompetent might be an understatement. For years Washington had been urging South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to create a stable, prosperous, and democratic society that would increase public support for the government. Diem stubbornly insisted on going the other way, creating a strong authoritarian regime run by his family that did little to address the rampant poverty, repression, and injustice that the citizens were suffering on a daily basis. This suffering, Washington worried, would undermine South Vietnam from within and make it more vulnerable to the looming Communist threat. Diem’s iron-fisted autocratic rule would ultimately cost him his life; in February 1962, he and several members of his corrupt government were killed by a pair of South Vietnamese Air Force pilots who brazenly bombed the Independence Palace in Saigon. Whether the air attack was a military coup or the work of lone wolves seeking to put an end to their oppressive leader was unclear to the Jackson Administration; what became clear to them was that the South Vietnamese military which then took control of the government was no better at running the country than Diem had been. If anything, they were worse. Saigon descended into political chaos as the Generals constantly schemed against each other for the top leadership position, not having any interest in putting together a stable lasting government. One of those Generals was Duong Van Minh. “Big Minh”, as he was called, was a stocky six-footer who loved certain things:
(Nguyen Van Thieu in 1964, the year he became the latest General to take charge in South Vietnam)
On November 4th, 1964, while Forbes was basking in the glow of defeating his two opponents George McGovern and George Wallace in the Presidential election, the enemy launched a major counteroffensive. The Viet Cong opened the offensive, suddenly capturing Quang Duc and Phuoc Long in central South Vietnam. Their attempt to capture Lam Dong was defeated by the South Vietnamese on November 8th. The next day, North Vietnam received military support from her two major allies. The Soviet Union sent weapons and supplies (including tanks) while China publicly announced that it was deploying infantry divisions to North Vietnam. According to Nanjing, if American soldiers could fight alongside the South Vietnamese, then Chinese soldiers could equally fight alongside the North Vietnamese. China’s entry into the Vietnam War troubled those who were doing the fighting; not only did they have to contend with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, they would now have the Chinese shooting at them. In Washington, the news triggered a debate about how best to deal with this new enemy. Some hawks in Congress, most notably recently re-elected Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons. So did the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Let’s nuke them,” the gruff cigar-chomping Air Force Chief Curtis Lemay demanded. “Let’s make those chinks regret ever setting foot inside Vietnam!”
From the standpoint of the Joint Chiefs, using tactical nuclear weapons made perfect sense. Since they were designed to be use specifically on the battlefield, tactical nuclear weapons would enable the Americans to decimate the waves of Chinese soldiers they were anticipating would be joining the fight. Scoop, who normally deferred to the military’s judgment, was uncharacteristically noncommittal. He felt that a decision of this magnitude, one which would irrevocably alter the course of the Vietnam War, shouldn’t be made by a one-term Commander-in-Chief who was on his way out the door. He tossed the decision over to his successor. Forbes made it crystal-clear that he was against the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The last thing he wanted to do was escalate the Vietnam War into a nuclear war. Once they used them, the new Commander-in-Chief argued, the Soviets would feel compelled to arm their North Vietnamese ally with tactical nuclear weapons and put the Americans on the receiving end. The result would be a nuclear exchange the likes of which the world had never seen before...one which might lead to the end of the world. “We are not going to nuke anybody,” he pointedly rebuffed Lemay. “We are not going to have mushroom clouds rising up all over Vietnam. These are not ‘just another weapon’, as Barry [Goldwater] put it, that we can use casually.”
No. Forbes would continue to wage a conventional war in Vietnam...and hope that China wouldn’t overwhelm the Americans with sheer numbers.
(As Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force during the Jackson Administration, Curtis Lemay was responsible for the strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam which began in September 1964. His aggressive style however clashed with Forbes’ cautious “let’s not rock the boat” handling of Vietnam; following several disagreements with the President over strategy, Lemay resigned his post in May 1965)
On November 9th, the same day North Vietnam was getting support from the Soviet Union and China, the South Vietnamese defeated an effort by the Viet Cong to capture Tuyen Duc. This victory prevented the Viet Cong from literally cutting South Vietnam in two. However, the South Vietnamese were too spread out to fully contain the enemy’s offensive. The Viet Cong had occupied Darlac and Binh Long by November 14th, and had established a foothold in the Mekong Delta at Rach Gia. With the Viet Cong rapidly gaining ground and the South Vietnamese clearly in danger, Taylor turned away from Saravane and Hue and shifted his forces south. The Americans made contact with the Viet Cong at Darlac on November 19th, defeating them in short order. That same day, the North Vietnamese joined the offensive, overwhelming South Vietnamese forces left behind at Da Nang. Da Nang was occupied two days later. The North Vietnamese then put Kontum under siege, their goal being to grind down the strength of the South Vietnamese defenders. American General Hamilton H. Howze reoccupied Darlac, which was situated in a hilly area, on November 26th. The Americans then spent the next month focused on rolling back the Viet Cong in central South Vietnam, retaking their last position at Tay Ninh on December 28th. Taylor’s next step was to clear out the Mekong Delta, half of which was under the Viet Cong’s control.
(The American advance on Darlac)
While the Americans were regaining ground in central South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were losing ground to the north. For weeks the North Vietnamese forces had been laying siege to Kontum. The defenders of the strategic mountainous position were holding their own, but weeks of constant attacks were wearing them down. Finally the enemy launched a frontal assault which they couldn’t repulse. Kontum fell on December 19th; with the loss of Kontum, resistance in north South Vietnam began to collapse. Quang Tin fell on December 27th, followed by Quang Ngai on January 4th, 1965, Pleiku on February 2nd, Qui Non on February 12th, and Phu Bon on February 21st. The South Vietnamese were being pushed back and desperately needed help from their American ally to stem the tide.
While disaster was unfolding up north, Taylor was intently focused on the Mekong Delta. The capture of Rach Gia and Vinh Long had given the Viet Cong control over half the area, trapping a South Vietnamese division at An Kuyen. With no way to escape, this division faced certain destruction. Taylor felt he wouldn’t be able to reach An Kuyen in time to provide relief before the South Vietnamese were overwhelmed. However, he did recognize a golden opportunity to deal a major blow against the Viet Cong. According to intelligence, there were six enemy divisions in Rach Gia and one in Vinh Long. That meant the Viet Cong would use the bulk of their divisions in Rach Gia for their attack on An Kuyen. If Taylor could attack and capture Rach Gia before the Viet Cong could rush back, he could cut off their only avenue of retreat and pin the Viet Cong against the coast. The seven divisions could then be completely destroyed, inflicting a tremendous blow on the Viet Cong. Taylor ordered his forces to halt their advance at Kien Phong and wait for the window of opportunity to present itself in which to launch what would become known as Operation Double Eagle. That window began to open on January 4th, 1965 when the Viet Cong attacked and destroyed the South Vietnamese defenders at An Kuyen. The bulk of the Viet Cong forces at Rach Gia then went and occupied An Kuyen. This was the moment Taylor had been waiting for. He ordered Howze to attack Rach Gia on January 6th. The two Viet Cong divisions which were left behind were defeated and retreated to An Kuyen. Rach Gia was reoccupied on January 11th, pinning the Viet Cong against the coast. Two days later, the Americans attacked An Kuyen while the South Vietnamese simultaneously attacked Vinh Long. Fighting together, they destroyed the seven trapped Viet Cong divisions. General Alexander Haig reoccupied An Kuyen on January 17th and the South Vietnamese took back Vinh Long on January 20th – the same day Forbes was inaugurated the 39th President of the United States.
Operation Double Eagle was a major victory for the United States in the Vietnam War. Not only was the Mekong Delta secured, the Viet Cong had suffered the lost of seven divisions. Immediately Taylor shifted his forces back north to try and halt the unstoppable North Vietnamese advance. American forces reached Darlac on February 18th, their arrival providing much-needed relief for South Vietnamese troops who had been retreating in the face of a powerful enemy. While fighting was raging across South Vietnam, Bangkok had been watching nervously from the sidelines. Bordering Indochina, pro-US Thailand was alarmed by the prospect of the area becoming a Chinese sphere of influence and was worried about its’ own future as an independent nation. Believing that keeping North Vietnam from conquering South Vietnam was in his country’s best interest, Thai Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn announced on February 20th that his country would deploy soldiers to Vietnam to fight alongside the South Vietnamese. Thailand’s entry into the Vietnam War became another sign that the war was not only escalating but was also becoming more internationalized. The Vietnam War was a mixed picture for the Americans at the end of February 1965. On the one hand, they had landed a decisive blow against the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta. On the other hand, they were further away from the 17th Parallel – which divided Vietnam in two – than they had been just three months earlier. With intelligence indicating that he faced at least sixteen divisions, Taylor had to figure out how to push the enemy back and regain the initiative in the north. For the commander of US forces in Vietnam, waging this war was proving to be more difficult than he had imagined.
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Well look at that: a second update in less than a month! I have already written more in 2021 than I did in 2019.
The next update will also be about Vietnam. There's a couple of things I wanted to also mention that I couldn't fit into this update.
El Pip: Thank you very much, El Pip. I see you got a new AAR that I will check out. I also see you finished your Slovakia AAR. I got to read it when I get a chance and see how T&T fared (probably poorly. It is Slovakia after all).
What do you even feed American prisoners in a KGB prison?
Since Forbes historically never became Governor of New Jersey nor President of the United States, I am left to figure out what kind of President he might have been. He strikes me as being a moderate, pragmatic Republican. Not too politically liberal and not too politically conservative.
Historically JFK pushed for arms control and the best he could do in 1963 was a limited nuclear test ban treat. Since Scoop Jackson historically believed that you couldn't trust the Soviets at the negotiating table, I couldn't see him pursuing arms control like Kennedy did. That means Forbes has to start the process from scratch.
You're in luck: the next update is all about Vietnam. I even have screenshots of the Vietnam mod!
I couldn't take your Lord of Slower-than-real-time title, El Pip. You're the master; I am just the humble student.
Le Jones: Thank you. I appreciate that.
DensleyBlair: Considering this AAR has 108 pages, I completely understand that you have never sat down and read the whole thing front to back.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inheriting Vietnam
When Malcolm Forbes became President of the United States in January 1965, there were 140,000 American combat soldiers stationed in South Vietnam. The vast majority of those troops – described by one journalist as “rock-and-rollers with one foot in the grave” – had been deployed there by Forbes’ predecessor Henry M. Jackson to help the South Vietnamese Army fight the North Vietnamese Army and the North Vietnam-backed Viet Cong guerrillas who were invading their country. Ho Chi Minh, the Communist President of North Vietnam, was determined to defeat South Vietnam – which he regarded as being nothing more than America’s puppet – and reunify the two countries under his rule. In the conflict that followed, Ho found himself an unexpected ally: Chiang Kai-shek, the authoritarian President of the Republic of China. China in the 1960s was flexing its’ muscles on the international stage, showing the world that it was a major power to be reckoned with and that the days of kicking the Chinese around were over. A major component of China’s aggressive foreign policy was establishing a sphere of influence in the former French colony of Indochina (comprising of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia).
(President Chiang Kai-shek, seen here presiding over the celebration of Double Ten Day in Nanjing in October 1966. The Republic of China in the 1960s was a paternal autocratic state that had big plans and a militant dictator determined to make those plans a reality)
China’s first move in Indochina came in July 1961 when it invaded Laos on the grounds of restoring order in a country that was in the midst of a civil war. When China’s military intervention formally ended in April 1962, Laos had been transformed into a puppet state with a collaborationist Laotian General installed as the new Head of State by the Chinese. While securing Laos, the Chinese turned their attention towards the situation in Vietnam. Ho viewed the division of Vietnam into two countries as being unacceptable and waged war against the US-allied South Vietnam with the goal of reuniting the two Vietnams under his Communist rule. Chiang regarded South Vietnam as being nothing more than America’s foothold in the region...a foothold that needed to be eliminated if Indochina was to be exclusively a Chinese sphere of influence. Operating on the principal that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, Nanjing recognized Hanoi as being the only legitimate Vietnamese government and Chiang traveled to Hanoi to sign a treaty of friendship with Ho. The new Sino-North Vietnamese alliance, like the alliance between the Allies and the Comintern during World War Two, was driven more by having a mutual enemy than by shared ideology. Chiang himself wasn’t a Communist; rather, he was an opportunist who was willing to get into the proverbial bed with the Communists if it meant strengthening China. He viewed a united Communist Vietnam as being a better partner for China than a divided Vietnam. While Ho welcomed Chiang’s backing publicly, privately he didn’t trust him. Chiang had a reputation as a shameless backstabber who was willing to throw anyone under the bus for the sake of his own power. While he created the impression that he was a true friend of Hanoi, the weary North Vietnamese leader couldn’t be certain if his Chinese counterpart was genuine or was simply putting on a facade. That he was dealing with Ho with a sharpened knife behind his back.
(President Ho Chi Minh, who was distrustful of his new ally Chiang Kai-shek)
The Jackson Administration viewed China’s move into Indochina through the prism of the Domino Theory. Formulated by President Adlai Stevenson in 1953, the Domino Theory held that if one country fell to the enemy, others would follow right behind it. With Laos gone, if North Vietnam succeeded in taking over South Vietnam, Cambodia would be ripe for the pickings and Thailand would then find China knocking on her front door. It was to stop the dominoes from falling in Indochina that Scoop made the fateful decision in April 1962 to sharply escalate America’s military involvement in Vietnam. From less than 1,000 at the start of 1961, the number of soldiers swelled to 140,000 in four years. To command the US forces in South Vietnam, the President chose General Maxwell Taylor. Taylor had experience in fighting Communists, having led the US military mission in Yugoslavia during the 1950s which helped the pro-US royalist regime defeat a Communist insurgency. Taylor arrived in Saigon armed with a three-prong plan to:
- Destroy the Viet Cong and kick the North Vietnamese Army out of South Vietnam
- Strengthen the South Vietnamese Army so it could defend the country largely on their own
- Withdraw the majority of his forces from South Vietnam, leaving behind a small garrison of 2,000-3,000 soldiers
While America was scoring victories on the battlefield, there was a major problem hindering the effort to build a strong South Vietnam: the South Vietnamese government. To say that Saigon was incompetent might be an understatement. For years Washington had been urging South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to create a stable, prosperous, and democratic society that would increase public support for the government. Diem stubbornly insisted on going the other way, creating a strong authoritarian regime run by his family that did little to address the rampant poverty, repression, and injustice that the citizens were suffering on a daily basis. This suffering, Washington worried, would undermine South Vietnam from within and make it more vulnerable to the looming Communist threat. Diem’s iron-fisted autocratic rule would ultimately cost him his life; in February 1962, he and several members of his corrupt government were killed by a pair of South Vietnamese Air Force pilots who brazenly bombed the Independence Palace in Saigon. Whether the air attack was a military coup or the work of lone wolves seeking to put an end to their oppressive leader was unclear to the Jackson Administration; what became clear to them was that the South Vietnamese military which then took control of the government was no better at running the country than Diem had been. If anything, they were worse. Saigon descended into political chaos as the Generals constantly schemed against each other for the top leadership position, not having any interest in putting together a stable lasting government. One of those Generals was Duong Van Minh. “Big Minh”, as he was called, was a stocky six-footer who loved certain things:
- Rare, exotic birds
- Tennis
- Classic books
- Classical music
- Power
(Nguyen Van Thieu in 1964, the year he became the latest General to take charge in South Vietnam)
On November 4th, 1964, while Forbes was basking in the glow of defeating his two opponents George McGovern and George Wallace in the Presidential election, the enemy launched a major counteroffensive. The Viet Cong opened the offensive, suddenly capturing Quang Duc and Phuoc Long in central South Vietnam. Their attempt to capture Lam Dong was defeated by the South Vietnamese on November 8th. The next day, North Vietnam received military support from her two major allies. The Soviet Union sent weapons and supplies (including tanks) while China publicly announced that it was deploying infantry divisions to North Vietnam. According to Nanjing, if American soldiers could fight alongside the South Vietnamese, then Chinese soldiers could equally fight alongside the North Vietnamese. China’s entry into the Vietnam War troubled those who were doing the fighting; not only did they have to contend with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, they would now have the Chinese shooting at them. In Washington, the news triggered a debate about how best to deal with this new enemy. Some hawks in Congress, most notably recently re-elected Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons. So did the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Let’s nuke them,” the gruff cigar-chomping Air Force Chief Curtis Lemay demanded. “Let’s make those chinks regret ever setting foot inside Vietnam!”
From the standpoint of the Joint Chiefs, using tactical nuclear weapons made perfect sense. Since they were designed to be use specifically on the battlefield, tactical nuclear weapons would enable the Americans to decimate the waves of Chinese soldiers they were anticipating would be joining the fight. Scoop, who normally deferred to the military’s judgment, was uncharacteristically noncommittal. He felt that a decision of this magnitude, one which would irrevocably alter the course of the Vietnam War, shouldn’t be made by a one-term Commander-in-Chief who was on his way out the door. He tossed the decision over to his successor. Forbes made it crystal-clear that he was against the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The last thing he wanted to do was escalate the Vietnam War into a nuclear war. Once they used them, the new Commander-in-Chief argued, the Soviets would feel compelled to arm their North Vietnamese ally with tactical nuclear weapons and put the Americans on the receiving end. The result would be a nuclear exchange the likes of which the world had never seen before...one which might lead to the end of the world. “We are not going to nuke anybody,” he pointedly rebuffed Lemay. “We are not going to have mushroom clouds rising up all over Vietnam. These are not ‘just another weapon’, as Barry [Goldwater] put it, that we can use casually.”
No. Forbes would continue to wage a conventional war in Vietnam...and hope that China wouldn’t overwhelm the Americans with sheer numbers.
(As Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force during the Jackson Administration, Curtis Lemay was responsible for the strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam which began in September 1964. His aggressive style however clashed with Forbes’ cautious “let’s not rock the boat” handling of Vietnam; following several disagreements with the President over strategy, Lemay resigned his post in May 1965)
On November 9th, the same day North Vietnam was getting support from the Soviet Union and China, the South Vietnamese defeated an effort by the Viet Cong to capture Tuyen Duc. This victory prevented the Viet Cong from literally cutting South Vietnam in two. However, the South Vietnamese were too spread out to fully contain the enemy’s offensive. The Viet Cong had occupied Darlac and Binh Long by November 14th, and had established a foothold in the Mekong Delta at Rach Gia. With the Viet Cong rapidly gaining ground and the South Vietnamese clearly in danger, Taylor turned away from Saravane and Hue and shifted his forces south. The Americans made contact with the Viet Cong at Darlac on November 19th, defeating them in short order. That same day, the North Vietnamese joined the offensive, overwhelming South Vietnamese forces left behind at Da Nang. Da Nang was occupied two days later. The North Vietnamese then put Kontum under siege, their goal being to grind down the strength of the South Vietnamese defenders. American General Hamilton H. Howze reoccupied Darlac, which was situated in a hilly area, on November 26th. The Americans then spent the next month focused on rolling back the Viet Cong in central South Vietnam, retaking their last position at Tay Ninh on December 28th. Taylor’s next step was to clear out the Mekong Delta, half of which was under the Viet Cong’s control.
(The American advance on Darlac)
While the Americans were regaining ground in central South Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were losing ground to the north. For weeks the North Vietnamese forces had been laying siege to Kontum. The defenders of the strategic mountainous position were holding their own, but weeks of constant attacks were wearing them down. Finally the enemy launched a frontal assault which they couldn’t repulse. Kontum fell on December 19th; with the loss of Kontum, resistance in north South Vietnam began to collapse. Quang Tin fell on December 27th, followed by Quang Ngai on January 4th, 1965, Pleiku on February 2nd, Qui Non on February 12th, and Phu Bon on February 21st. The South Vietnamese were being pushed back and desperately needed help from their American ally to stem the tide.
While disaster was unfolding up north, Taylor was intently focused on the Mekong Delta. The capture of Rach Gia and Vinh Long had given the Viet Cong control over half the area, trapping a South Vietnamese division at An Kuyen. With no way to escape, this division faced certain destruction. Taylor felt he wouldn’t be able to reach An Kuyen in time to provide relief before the South Vietnamese were overwhelmed. However, he did recognize a golden opportunity to deal a major blow against the Viet Cong. According to intelligence, there were six enemy divisions in Rach Gia and one in Vinh Long. That meant the Viet Cong would use the bulk of their divisions in Rach Gia for their attack on An Kuyen. If Taylor could attack and capture Rach Gia before the Viet Cong could rush back, he could cut off their only avenue of retreat and pin the Viet Cong against the coast. The seven divisions could then be completely destroyed, inflicting a tremendous blow on the Viet Cong. Taylor ordered his forces to halt their advance at Kien Phong and wait for the window of opportunity to present itself in which to launch what would become known as Operation Double Eagle. That window began to open on January 4th, 1965 when the Viet Cong attacked and destroyed the South Vietnamese defenders at An Kuyen. The bulk of the Viet Cong forces at Rach Gia then went and occupied An Kuyen. This was the moment Taylor had been waiting for. He ordered Howze to attack Rach Gia on January 6th. The two Viet Cong divisions which were left behind were defeated and retreated to An Kuyen. Rach Gia was reoccupied on January 11th, pinning the Viet Cong against the coast. Two days later, the Americans attacked An Kuyen while the South Vietnamese simultaneously attacked Vinh Long. Fighting together, they destroyed the seven trapped Viet Cong divisions. General Alexander Haig reoccupied An Kuyen on January 17th and the South Vietnamese took back Vinh Long on January 20th – the same day Forbes was inaugurated the 39th President of the United States.
Operation Double Eagle was a major victory for the United States in the Vietnam War. Not only was the Mekong Delta secured, the Viet Cong had suffered the lost of seven divisions. Immediately Taylor shifted his forces back north to try and halt the unstoppable North Vietnamese advance. American forces reached Darlac on February 18th, their arrival providing much-needed relief for South Vietnamese troops who had been retreating in the face of a powerful enemy. While fighting was raging across South Vietnam, Bangkok had been watching nervously from the sidelines. Bordering Indochina, pro-US Thailand was alarmed by the prospect of the area becoming a Chinese sphere of influence and was worried about its’ own future as an independent nation. Believing that keeping North Vietnam from conquering South Vietnam was in his country’s best interest, Thai Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn announced on February 20th that his country would deploy soldiers to Vietnam to fight alongside the South Vietnamese. Thailand’s entry into the Vietnam War became another sign that the war was not only escalating but was also becoming more internationalized. The Vietnam War was a mixed picture for the Americans at the end of February 1965. On the one hand, they had landed a decisive blow against the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta. On the other hand, they were further away from the 17th Parallel – which divided Vietnam in two – than they had been just three months earlier. With intelligence indicating that he faced at least sixteen divisions, Taylor had to figure out how to push the enemy back and regain the initiative in the north. For the commander of US forces in Vietnam, waging this war was proving to be more difficult than he had imagined.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well look at that: a second update in less than a month! I have already written more in 2021 than I did in 2019.
The next update will also be about Vietnam. There's a couple of things I wanted to also mention that I couldn't fit into this update.
Last edited:
- 7
Shadows of Corea'50 and of Nam'72 and 75...
A pity that Thieu is the best that Saigon has at hand...
A pity that Thieu is the best that Saigon has at hand...
Interesting set of alliances forming in Indochina, not least the incredibly pragmatic friendship between Chiang and Ho. The VC are obviously making fair progress up around the border, but securing the Mekong Delta is no insignificant thing. Should help put a stop to any infiltrating through Cambodia, should the VC be minded to expand the trails.
Curtis Lemay seems as unhinged as ever, so thank god Taylor and Forbes seem to be a steadier pair of hands. With the pace that things are escalating, the last thing anyone wants to happen is a 'tactical' nuclear detonation…
Curtis Lemay seems as unhinged as ever, so thank god Taylor and Forbes seem to be a steadier pair of hands. With the pace that things are escalating, the last thing anyone wants to happen is a 'tactical' nuclear detonation…
An Apocalypse Now quote, excellent.
In a strange way the Internationalisation of the conflict probably favours the Americans, they are good at fighting a conventional stand-up-fight war even if out-numbered, it's what they are trained and equipped for. Maybe not the jungle part of it, but set piece battles and enemies who stay to fight not melt back into the jungle. The most men China brings in, the more targets they will provide for US air power and artillery (up to a certain point anyway).
That said America was quite good at winning the battles in OTL (for a given value of 'win), the US political leadership just completely lacked any idea of how to win the war and the generals never seemed to ask for one. Getting a South Vietnamese government that the population would actually want to fight for should be Step One, but alas it appears Forbes is just as unwilling as the historic leaders to grapple with that admittedly very difficult problem. Van Thieu is not a leader anyone is going to want to rally round so General Taylor can win every battle but I fear the US will still lose in the end.
Finally as the ANZACs have turned up, and the conflict has been internationalised, I wonder if Rab Butler (who I think is British PM at this point if I remember correctly) may be tempted to send a token British contribution? It is a bit of an alt-history cliche but it may be possible here, the OTL distractions (Brunei Confrontation, Aden, Kenya etc) aren't a factor so troops are available and historically the US was prepared to help 'offset' British costs in the interest of making the war seem less about the US imposing things on Vietnam and more about the 'world' helping South Vietnam defend itself. Of course I suspect the OTL British concerns would apply, not least around the lack of a real political plan, and I can't see Forbes being happy to take high level strategic advice from Britain (which is fair enough, the US will be doing 90% of the fighting and 99% of the paying so why should he let a minor ally direct the war). Basically I think the British will take a look, ask some difficult questions and then walk away nervously, perhaps passing on some "are you really sure about this?" advice to Canberra and Wellington.
Or I will be completely wrong, Forbes will bite the bullet and come up with an amazing plan to reform the South Vietnamese government that doesn't involve puppet leaders, generals or rigged elections. Stranger things have happened.
Good to see ya back, Nathan!
Regarding internationalizing the war: will the Koreans join?
Regarding internationalizing the war: will the Koreans join?
Masterful as ever, and I always adored this AAR for its attention to detail and excellent prose.
Pausing to recover from the shudder that Le May always produces, you really do get the sense of how precarious the US / South Vietnamese position is (the map was strikingly effective at this). I'm with @El Pip on the effects of the war becoming more international, it will be interesting to see how different the outcome is from OTL.
Pausing to recover from the shudder that Le May always produces, you really do get the sense of how precarious the US / South Vietnamese position is (the map was strikingly effective at this). I'm with @El Pip on the effects of the war becoming more international, it will be interesting to see how different the outcome is from OTL.
I remember having read this AAR in the past, though it was so long ago and I can't properly remember the entire AAR. But it's so nice to see it's still being written, checked up the latest update and it was amazing, I love the map in this mod (I assume it's a mod?), It looks so detailed, so perfectly done to depict the Vietnam War; it's so wonderful.
Sadly Darkest Hour's only alternative to the vanilla big chunk map is the ultra detailed map that turns my potato into an old potato. Would love to have a map like the one in here,
Anyways, I'll try to start all over soon.
Impressive AAR you got here
Sadly Darkest Hour's only alternative to the vanilla big chunk map is the ultra detailed map that turns my potato into an old potato. Would love to have a map like the one in here,
Anyways, I'll try to start all over soon.
Impressive AAR you got here
Kurt_Steiner: Playing as the United States in the Vietnam War mod, you learn very quickly that you can't fight the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong at the same time. You have to pick one to focus on. If you focus on the North Vietnamese, then the Viet Cong overrun the country. If you focus on the Viet Cong, then the North Vietnamese overrun the country. The South Vietnamese are pretty useless at defending their own country. No wonder South Vietnam fell so quickly after we historically withdrew.
Which is not saying a whole lot. The Generals really were that inept at running the country.
DensleyBlair: "You don't want the Americans in South Vietnam. I don't want the Americans in South Vietnam. Let's be friends."
Given the ability of the Viet Cong to pop up anywhere at any time, I have a feeling I will be fighting them in the Mekong Delta again. I am not sure how much of an impact destroying seven Viet Cong divisions will have gamewise.
If you think Curtis Lemay "seems as unhinged as ever" now, wait until the next update.
"The last thing anyone wants to happen is a 'tactical' nuclear detonation"...unless you are Barry Goldwater.
El Pip: Thanks.
As this is the first time I am playing the Vietnam War mod, I don't know what's coming next. I don't know what events will pop up or what the enemy will do next. Every time I think I am winning the Vietnam War, the game throws a curve ball at me which sets me back. It's a possibility that I could somehow lose the Vietnam War.
This is how the game treats international units: ANZAC and Thai units are South Vietnamese units and Soviet/Chinese units are North Vietnamese units. So far the United States has won every battle in which American troops do the bulk of the fighting; the problem is that it is very difficult to destroy enemy divisions. For the most part, they just retreat and live to fight another day.
My "victory" goal for the Vietnam War is to drive the enemy out of South Vietnam. That's it. I'm not marching on Hanoi. Once all of South Vietnam is blue, it's "Mission Accomplished" as far as I am concerned. Then the American political leadership can figure out how to negotiate an end to the war and start bringing the boys home.
It isn't that Forbes is unwilling to grapple with the problem of how to get a South Vietnamese government that the population would actually want to fight for; rather, he hasn't gotten around to dealing with that problem yet. After all, he has only been in office for a month.
That's my feeling as well. If the South Vietnamese military can't form a government that can actually work, winning on the battlefield can only accomplish so much.
I will discuss what British Prime Minister Rab Butler thinks of the Vietnam War in a later update.
NickFeyR: Thank you. It's nice to be back.
The Koreans will join if the game lets them. The internationalizing of the Vietnam War reflects game events.
Le Jones: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Historically, President Lyndon B. Johnson didn't start sending US combat troops to South Vietnam until March 1965. In this timeline, the Americans started arriving a few years earlier, leading to a much different military situation in February 1965 than it was historically.
RV-Ye: This AAR is built around the Vietnam War mod. I think this is the first and only AAR to use the Vietnam War mod, although I could be wrong.
I have never played Darkest Hour...or anything that came after HOI2 Armaggedon for that matter.
Good luck and thanks.
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Fighting the Viet Cong
When President Henry M. Jackson made the decision in April 1962 to deploy American combat troops to South Vietnam, it set off a political debate in the United States. Those who supported the decision argued that it was in the best interest of the United States to defend South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese (who wanted to take over the South) and the Chinese (who wanted to take over Indochina). Those who opposed the decision counter-argued that North Vietnam was South Vietnam’s problem and that the United States shouldn’t fight her war for her. For the young men who were sent to South Vietnam, there was no political debate about whether they should be there or not. They were there because, in the words of Vietnam War veteran Jack Bronson, “You were in the military and you were sent. You did your job.”
For the typical American soldier in the field (many of whom were in their late teens or early 20s), the enemy was the enemy because they were trying to kill them. The geopolitics behind the Vietnam War, which was constantly on the minds of the adult higher-ups, might as well have been the Greek language to them. “At 19,” Bronson recalled, “What do you know about Communism? What you learn in school, which was limited. You know, as Ronald Reagan said, the Evil Empire. It is not something you can relate to when you are 19. Later on you can relate to it; but at 19, you have no life experience when you are 19-years-old.”
The generation that fought the Vietnam War had been born either during World War Two (1939-1947) or after the war. Both the war years and the post-war years produced a never-ending stream of war movies and westerns which formed in the minds of young men their expectations of what war and fighting was like. “You grew up watching those John Wayne movies where the good guys always win. I [Bronson] was being John Wayne and I was going to go, and I was going to beat them. And nothing could hurt me.”
Another Vietnam War veteran, Phil Caputo, remembered how he felt when he received his orders to go to Vietnam:
“I was excited about going to war. The whole battalion was excited about going to war. We were gung-ho. We were all excited by it because we had all been in training, many of us for a year at least. You know, you are brought to a fine honed edge. Not unlike a football team; and if a football team just keeps constantly scrimmaging, keeps constantly practicing but never plays in the big game, it is going to lose that edge. And I think that we were at that point now, which was ‘Okay. You know, we are ready and it is time to do what we have been trained to do.’”
Bronson, Caputo, and the thousands of other young men who steadily arrived in South Vietnam were confident that they would win the Vietnam War. After all, the United States enjoyed a reputation of winning wars. Having defeated Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan two decades earlier, America faced off against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. South Vietnamese guerrillas who wanted to unify the two Vietnams under Communist rule, the Viet Cong was the primary focus of the US....and it didn’t look all that impressive on paper. They weren’t as well-armed and well-trained as the Americans were, and they developed a track record of losing every single engagement with them. So sure the Viet Cong would be defeated, commanding General Maxwell Taylor predicted to his superiors in Washington that this enemy would cease to exist as a threat to South Vietnam by the end of 1965. The Viet Cong did have one major advantage however, one which the Americans with all their firepower could never overcome. Fighting on their home turf, the guerrillas possessed an intimate knowledge of the lay of the land. Unlike the Americans, the Viet Cong knew which paths to take in the dense jungle and which areas made effective hiding spots. They seemingly could pop up out of nowhere at any time, even in places that looked secure. According to Caputo, “Any square yard of Vietnam could be this absolutely utterly peaceful place one second, and the next second it was the end of the world.”
It certainly felt like the end of the world for those who were at the Brinks Hotel in the last days of 1964. A six-story L-shaped building located in downtown Saigon, the Brinks Hotel had 193 bedrooms. It was used to house American military personnel, who enjoyed the hotel’s fine food and movie theater. Despite the fierce fighting which raged across South Vietnam, the capital had largely been untouched by the war. Those who were staying at the Brinks Hotel were lulled into a sense of security that nothing would happen to them. That sense of security would turn out to be a false one. On December 24th, 1964, preparations were underway for a festive Christmas Eve dinner on the rooftop. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Viet Cong had been covertly spying on the Brinks Hotel. They wanted to show that they could even attack Saigon itself and chose the hotel as their target after discovering that it had lax security. Much to their delight, the Viet Cong found that it was rather easy getting a car loaded with 200 pounds of explosives into the car park beneath the hotel. At 5:45 PM, while military personnel and civilians were heading to the hotel for the Christmas Eve dinner, the car bomb was detonated using a timing device. The resulting explosion killed two people, injured 58, and badly damaged the hotel – to the point that it was rendered uninhabitable. The powerful blast also damaged nearby buildings, including a hotel housing entertainer Bob Hope (who was in Saigon for a United Service Organizations performance for US military personnel). In the wake of the attack, security was beefed up across Saigon.
The bombing of the Brinks Hotel – which the Viet Cong immediately claimed responsibility for – stunned the Americans. This was the first time they had been brazen enough to attack the South Vietnamese capital, and it reinforced the perception that these guerrillas could pop up literally out of nowhere. Of course, the Viet Cong weren’t just popping up out of nowhere. Many of their attacks were being launched from the porous Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. Cambodia’s position in the Vietnam War was a complicated one to say the least. Following China’s take-over of Laos in 1961, Cambodia began drifting into China’s orbit. Her royal ruler, Norodom Sihanouk, felt that his country would benefit from integrating freely into the Chinese sphere of influence and therefore was more than willing to become an ally of Chiang Kai-shek. This set off alarm bells in Washington. The Jackson Administration believed that a pro-China Cambodia would completely isolate South Vietnam, making the defense of the country untenable. In a meeting with his national security team to discuss Cambodia, the President declared:
“We could free South Vietnam of the Viet Cong and make it truly free and independent only to have it outflanked by a complete Chinese takeover in Laos and Cambodia. If this should happen, it would be almost impossible to hold Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”
A firm believer in the Domino Theory, Scoop decided that the best way to prevent the loss of Cambodia was to engineer a regime change in Phnom Penh. He ordered the CIA to orchestrate a coup against Sihanouk and replace his government with one that would be acceptable to the US. Codenamed Operation Matas, the CIA coup succeeded in toppling Sihanouk from power and replacing him with a new regime which quickly halted Cambodia’s slide into the Chinese camp. As for Sihanouk, the deposed leader fled his country and went into exile in China. The Chinese proceeded to use him for propaganda purposes, portraying the former monarch as the rightful leader of Cambodia who was driven out of his country by American imperialists who were subjugating the Asian people and building a Western Empire in the Eastern World.
(Norodom Sihanouk)
The establishment of a new government in Phnom Penh eased America’s immediate concerns about losing Cambodia. However, the new regime proved to be just as problematic as the old one but for a different reason. While it officially favored the US, it did little to prevent the Viet Cong from operating within Cambodian borders with relative impunity. Phnom Penh officially claimed that it lacked the military manpower to fully secure the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. There was suspicion though that what Cambodia really lacked was the willingness to stop the Viet Cong from using her as a staging ground for attacks on South Vietnam, that there were Cambodians who were sympathetic to the Communist effort to drive the Americans out of South Vietnam. After all, it was the Americans who meddled in their affairs by overthrowing the Sihanouk regime. Cambodia’s inability (or unwillingness) to stop the Viet Cong made it more difficult for the Americans to fight them. They became frustrated to see defeated Viet Cong divisions retreat across the border into the dense jungles of Cambodia, where they were out of the reach of US soldiers who didn’t know the terrain like they did.
(Phnom Penh during the 1960s)
Taylor tried to deal with this problem by requesting additional forces that could clear the Cambodian border of Viet Cong divisions and secure it against further enemy encroachment. While he received his reinforcements, attacks by both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army forced Taylor to put off his plan to secure the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. He discovered that it was impossible to deal with the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese, and the border all at the same time with the number of men that he had. Something had to give, which meant the border went unguarded. With the commanding General in Vietnam unable to deal with the border situation on the ground, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended launching air strikes inside Cambodia. Believing that bombing was the answer to everything, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis Lemay had no qualms about sending American planes into Cambodia and dropping bombs on Viet Cong divisions. If Cambodians were killed in the air strikes, oh well. Too bad. Lemay’s nonchalant attitude was exactly why neither Jackson nor his successor Malcolm Forbes ordered the air strikes the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted. The fear of the civilian leadership – which the military leadership didn’t share – was that if US planes flew into Cambodian airspace and indiscriminately killed Cambodians, Cambodians would become so outraged that they would take their anger out on the government which – on paper – was aligned with the Americans and was allowing the air strikes to occur. “If the government we put in [Phnom Penh] falls,” Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze warned, “We will be right back where we started and probably be worse off than we were before.”
Unwilling to risk losing Cambodia, which in turn would completely isolate South Vietnam, Scoop ruled Cambodia off-limits to air strikes. Republican Forbes maintained this policy after he was sworn in as President in January 1965, agreeing with his Democratic predecessor that conducting such a bombing campaign would do more harm than good. It fit perfectly with his cautious strategy of not rocking the boat when it came to Vietnam. The new Commander-in-Chief was reluctant to take any military action that would escalate the war any further than it was already was. Therefore, there would be no bombing of Cambodia.
Which is not saying a whole lot. The Generals really were that inept at running the country.
DensleyBlair: "You don't want the Americans in South Vietnam. I don't want the Americans in South Vietnam. Let's be friends."
Given the ability of the Viet Cong to pop up anywhere at any time, I have a feeling I will be fighting them in the Mekong Delta again. I am not sure how much of an impact destroying seven Viet Cong divisions will have gamewise.
If you think Curtis Lemay "seems as unhinged as ever" now, wait until the next update.
"The last thing anyone wants to happen is a 'tactical' nuclear detonation"...unless you are Barry Goldwater.
El Pip: Thanks.
As this is the first time I am playing the Vietnam War mod, I don't know what's coming next. I don't know what events will pop up or what the enemy will do next. Every time I think I am winning the Vietnam War, the game throws a curve ball at me which sets me back. It's a possibility that I could somehow lose the Vietnam War.
This is how the game treats international units: ANZAC and Thai units are South Vietnamese units and Soviet/Chinese units are North Vietnamese units. So far the United States has won every battle in which American troops do the bulk of the fighting; the problem is that it is very difficult to destroy enemy divisions. For the most part, they just retreat and live to fight another day.
My "victory" goal for the Vietnam War is to drive the enemy out of South Vietnam. That's it. I'm not marching on Hanoi. Once all of South Vietnam is blue, it's "Mission Accomplished" as far as I am concerned. Then the American political leadership can figure out how to negotiate an end to the war and start bringing the boys home.
It isn't that Forbes is unwilling to grapple with the problem of how to get a South Vietnamese government that the population would actually want to fight for; rather, he hasn't gotten around to dealing with that problem yet. After all, he has only been in office for a month.
That's my feeling as well. If the South Vietnamese military can't form a government that can actually work, winning on the battlefield can only accomplish so much.
I will discuss what British Prime Minister Rab Butler thinks of the Vietnam War in a later update.
NickFeyR: Thank you. It's nice to be back.
The Koreans will join if the game lets them. The internationalizing of the Vietnam War reflects game events.
Le Jones: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Historically, President Lyndon B. Johnson didn't start sending US combat troops to South Vietnam until March 1965. In this timeline, the Americans started arriving a few years earlier, leading to a much different military situation in February 1965 than it was historically.
RV-Ye: This AAR is built around the Vietnam War mod. I think this is the first and only AAR to use the Vietnam War mod, although I could be wrong.
I have never played Darkest Hour...or anything that came after HOI2 Armaggedon for that matter.
Good luck and thanks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighting the Viet Cong
When President Henry M. Jackson made the decision in April 1962 to deploy American combat troops to South Vietnam, it set off a political debate in the United States. Those who supported the decision argued that it was in the best interest of the United States to defend South Vietnam from the North Vietnamese (who wanted to take over the South) and the Chinese (who wanted to take over Indochina). Those who opposed the decision counter-argued that North Vietnam was South Vietnam’s problem and that the United States shouldn’t fight her war for her. For the young men who were sent to South Vietnam, there was no political debate about whether they should be there or not. They were there because, in the words of Vietnam War veteran Jack Bronson, “You were in the military and you were sent. You did your job.”
For the typical American soldier in the field (many of whom were in their late teens or early 20s), the enemy was the enemy because they were trying to kill them. The geopolitics behind the Vietnam War, which was constantly on the minds of the adult higher-ups, might as well have been the Greek language to them. “At 19,” Bronson recalled, “What do you know about Communism? What you learn in school, which was limited. You know, as Ronald Reagan said, the Evil Empire. It is not something you can relate to when you are 19. Later on you can relate to it; but at 19, you have no life experience when you are 19-years-old.”
The generation that fought the Vietnam War had been born either during World War Two (1939-1947) or after the war. Both the war years and the post-war years produced a never-ending stream of war movies and westerns which formed in the minds of young men their expectations of what war and fighting was like. “You grew up watching those John Wayne movies where the good guys always win. I [Bronson] was being John Wayne and I was going to go, and I was going to beat them. And nothing could hurt me.”
Another Vietnam War veteran, Phil Caputo, remembered how he felt when he received his orders to go to Vietnam:
“I was excited about going to war. The whole battalion was excited about going to war. We were gung-ho. We were all excited by it because we had all been in training, many of us for a year at least. You know, you are brought to a fine honed edge. Not unlike a football team; and if a football team just keeps constantly scrimmaging, keeps constantly practicing but never plays in the big game, it is going to lose that edge. And I think that we were at that point now, which was ‘Okay. You know, we are ready and it is time to do what we have been trained to do.’”
Bronson, Caputo, and the thousands of other young men who steadily arrived in South Vietnam were confident that they would win the Vietnam War. After all, the United States enjoyed a reputation of winning wars. Having defeated Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan two decades earlier, America faced off against the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. South Vietnamese guerrillas who wanted to unify the two Vietnams under Communist rule, the Viet Cong was the primary focus of the US....and it didn’t look all that impressive on paper. They weren’t as well-armed and well-trained as the Americans were, and they developed a track record of losing every single engagement with them. So sure the Viet Cong would be defeated, commanding General Maxwell Taylor predicted to his superiors in Washington that this enemy would cease to exist as a threat to South Vietnam by the end of 1965. The Viet Cong did have one major advantage however, one which the Americans with all their firepower could never overcome. Fighting on their home turf, the guerrillas possessed an intimate knowledge of the lay of the land. Unlike the Americans, the Viet Cong knew which paths to take in the dense jungle and which areas made effective hiding spots. They seemingly could pop up out of nowhere at any time, even in places that looked secure. According to Caputo, “Any square yard of Vietnam could be this absolutely utterly peaceful place one second, and the next second it was the end of the world.”
It certainly felt like the end of the world for those who were at the Brinks Hotel in the last days of 1964. A six-story L-shaped building located in downtown Saigon, the Brinks Hotel had 193 bedrooms. It was used to house American military personnel, who enjoyed the hotel’s fine food and movie theater. Despite the fierce fighting which raged across South Vietnam, the capital had largely been untouched by the war. Those who were staying at the Brinks Hotel were lulled into a sense of security that nothing would happen to them. That sense of security would turn out to be a false one. On December 24th, 1964, preparations were underway for a festive Christmas Eve dinner on the rooftop. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Viet Cong had been covertly spying on the Brinks Hotel. They wanted to show that they could even attack Saigon itself and chose the hotel as their target after discovering that it had lax security. Much to their delight, the Viet Cong found that it was rather easy getting a car loaded with 200 pounds of explosives into the car park beneath the hotel. At 5:45 PM, while military personnel and civilians were heading to the hotel for the Christmas Eve dinner, the car bomb was detonated using a timing device. The resulting explosion killed two people, injured 58, and badly damaged the hotel – to the point that it was rendered uninhabitable. The powerful blast also damaged nearby buildings, including a hotel housing entertainer Bob Hope (who was in Saigon for a United Service Organizations performance for US military personnel). In the wake of the attack, security was beefed up across Saigon.
The bombing of the Brinks Hotel – which the Viet Cong immediately claimed responsibility for – stunned the Americans. This was the first time they had been brazen enough to attack the South Vietnamese capital, and it reinforced the perception that these guerrillas could pop up literally out of nowhere. Of course, the Viet Cong weren’t just popping up out of nowhere. Many of their attacks were being launched from the porous Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. Cambodia’s position in the Vietnam War was a complicated one to say the least. Following China’s take-over of Laos in 1961, Cambodia began drifting into China’s orbit. Her royal ruler, Norodom Sihanouk, felt that his country would benefit from integrating freely into the Chinese sphere of influence and therefore was more than willing to become an ally of Chiang Kai-shek. This set off alarm bells in Washington. The Jackson Administration believed that a pro-China Cambodia would completely isolate South Vietnam, making the defense of the country untenable. In a meeting with his national security team to discuss Cambodia, the President declared:
“We could free South Vietnam of the Viet Cong and make it truly free and independent only to have it outflanked by a complete Chinese takeover in Laos and Cambodia. If this should happen, it would be almost impossible to hold Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”
A firm believer in the Domino Theory, Scoop decided that the best way to prevent the loss of Cambodia was to engineer a regime change in Phnom Penh. He ordered the CIA to orchestrate a coup against Sihanouk and replace his government with one that would be acceptable to the US. Codenamed Operation Matas, the CIA coup succeeded in toppling Sihanouk from power and replacing him with a new regime which quickly halted Cambodia’s slide into the Chinese camp. As for Sihanouk, the deposed leader fled his country and went into exile in China. The Chinese proceeded to use him for propaganda purposes, portraying the former monarch as the rightful leader of Cambodia who was driven out of his country by American imperialists who were subjugating the Asian people and building a Western Empire in the Eastern World.
(Norodom Sihanouk)
The establishment of a new government in Phnom Penh eased America’s immediate concerns about losing Cambodia. However, the new regime proved to be just as problematic as the old one but for a different reason. While it officially favored the US, it did little to prevent the Viet Cong from operating within Cambodian borders with relative impunity. Phnom Penh officially claimed that it lacked the military manpower to fully secure the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. There was suspicion though that what Cambodia really lacked was the willingness to stop the Viet Cong from using her as a staging ground for attacks on South Vietnam, that there were Cambodians who were sympathetic to the Communist effort to drive the Americans out of South Vietnam. After all, it was the Americans who meddled in their affairs by overthrowing the Sihanouk regime. Cambodia’s inability (or unwillingness) to stop the Viet Cong made it more difficult for the Americans to fight them. They became frustrated to see defeated Viet Cong divisions retreat across the border into the dense jungles of Cambodia, where they were out of the reach of US soldiers who didn’t know the terrain like they did.
(Phnom Penh during the 1960s)
Taylor tried to deal with this problem by requesting additional forces that could clear the Cambodian border of Viet Cong divisions and secure it against further enemy encroachment. While he received his reinforcements, attacks by both the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army forced Taylor to put off his plan to secure the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. He discovered that it was impossible to deal with the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese, and the border all at the same time with the number of men that he had. Something had to give, which meant the border went unguarded. With the commanding General in Vietnam unable to deal with the border situation on the ground, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended launching air strikes inside Cambodia. Believing that bombing was the answer to everything, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis Lemay had no qualms about sending American planes into Cambodia and dropping bombs on Viet Cong divisions. If Cambodians were killed in the air strikes, oh well. Too bad. Lemay’s nonchalant attitude was exactly why neither Jackson nor his successor Malcolm Forbes ordered the air strikes the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted. The fear of the civilian leadership – which the military leadership didn’t share – was that if US planes flew into Cambodian airspace and indiscriminately killed Cambodians, Cambodians would become so outraged that they would take their anger out on the government which – on paper – was aligned with the Americans and was allowing the air strikes to occur. “If the government we put in [Phnom Penh] falls,” Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze warned, “We will be right back where we started and probably be worse off than we were before.”
Unwilling to risk losing Cambodia, which in turn would completely isolate South Vietnam, Scoop ruled Cambodia off-limits to air strikes. Republican Forbes maintained this policy after he was sworn in as President in January 1965, agreeing with his Democratic predecessor that conducting such a bombing campaign would do more harm than good. It fit perfectly with his cautious strategy of not rocking the boat when it came to Vietnam. The new Commander-in-Chief was reluctant to take any military action that would escalate the war any further than it was already was. Therefore, there would be no bombing of Cambodia.
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Well it is one way to "win" the war I suppose. But I agree, probably better to lose than unleash that particular horror.
An objective that seems so modest. I wish you luck with it, you will need it. As will the South Vietnamese once the American troops start heading home (assuming things even get that far)
Something to look forward to.
I had assumed these would be volunteer/professional soldiers given how keen they are. But they might not have been, apparently the US was still running peacetime conscription for the 50s and 60s, which I found surprising.
I suppose the caveat is no bombing right now. If the Cambodian regime continue to be unhelpful and the war takes a turn for the worse I can see this decision being reconsidered later in Forbes' term of office.
I look forward to the next update, let us see what big decisions Forbes takes rather than just following the policies of his predecessor. Because he will need to make some big decisions, the current plan appears a recipe for defeat - unpopular South Vietnamese government, an ARVN that can't/won't fight and the US army lacking the number of troops it needs to do all the jobs they think need doing.
El Pip: Given that Barry Goldwater advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam and talked about lobbying one into the bathroom of the Kremlin, I can't help but wonder what might have happened had he been elected President in 1964.
Thanks. Given how strong the North Vietnamese Army is, just pushing them back across the DMZ will be an accomplishment. The American government TTL went into Vietnam with a clear objective of what "victory" is. Historically, the American government didn't really have a clear objective of what "victory" in Vietnam looked like and sent men into the jungle to fight without really knowing what they were fighting for.
Since I am finding more time to write now, the update featuring the British view on Vietnam will be done most likely next year.
The American soldiers in the early years of the Vietnam War were very gung-ho about fighting...much like how soldiers in the beginning of World War One were gung-ho about getting into the fight. It wasn't until both wars turned into a bloody slog that the gung-ho enthusiasm naturally disappeared.
Historically President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Cambodia and his decision ended up doing everybody more harm than good. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed in the bombing campaign, there was massive protests in the United States (culminating in the Kent State shooting in Ohio), and it helped throw Cambodia into total chaos which enabled the rise of Pol Pot and his brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
The next update is going to be a break from Vietnam. As for Forbes, he will be making big decisions as time goes on.
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Malcolm X
The air inside Central Maine Youth Center was thick with anticipation as people packed the 4,000 seat Lewiston, Maine arena. It was May 25th, 1965, and people had gathered to watch two of the biggest names in boxing go at it once again. Sitting on a stool in one corner of the ring, waiting for his cue to stand up, was former World Heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. Described by one boxing promoter as being “more ferocious, more indestructible” than Mike Tyson, Liston had won the title by knocking out champion Floyd Patterson in a September 1962 bout that lasted just two minutes. Armed with an ominous stare and a powerful left jab, Liston easily intimidated a lot of people. Not Cassius Clay. A brash Olympic gold medalist armed with lightning-fast reflexes, Clay was incredibly self-confident about challenging Liston for the title. Undaunted by Liston’s fearsome reputation, the “Louisville Lip” predicted to anyone who would listen (and anyone who wouldn’t) that he would knock out “Big Bear” in eight rounds. Many people rolled their eyes at hearing this, believing that the motor-mouth braggart had no chance of winning. In February 1964, the seven-to-one betting underdog climbed into a Miami Beach, Florida boxing ring with the hard-hitting World Heavyweight champion...and proceeded to beat him in six rounds. Worn down by Clay’s superior speed and his left eye cut, Liston threw in the towel. He no longer wanted to fight, unlike Clay who was still full of fight. After being declared the winner by technical knockout, a triumphant Clay bragged:
“I don’t have a mark on my face, I just upset Sonny Liston, and I just turned 22-years-old! I must be the greatest!”
Over a year later, the two men faced off once again in a rematch. Having completely underestimated his opponent the last time, Liston trained hard this time and prepared himself to go 15 rounds. Unfortunately for “Big Bear”, he wouldn’t get that far when he climbed into the Lewiston ring with the “Louisville Lip”. After getting hit in the jaw midway through the first round, the former heavyweight champ threw a left jab and the reigning heavyweight champ dodged it. He immediately countered with a fast right jab, knocking Liston flat on his back. He attempted to get up, only to falter and fall on his back again. That punch had been fast...too fast as it turned out. There was confusion in the audience as Liston was counted out and the defending champ was declared the winner by knockout. Some people claimed that they saw the fast right jab while other people claimed that they never saw it. That Liston somehow fell without getting hit. It became known as the “Phantom Punch,” and even the man who delivered the controversial final punch of the bout was unsure if it had connected or not. Standing over Liston before the match was called, he shouted “Get up and fight, sucker!”
There was no getting up and fighting, however. Sonny Liston, once widely considered to be unbeatable, had been beaten again by the same man. This time though, he didn’t lose to Cassius Clay. He had lost to Muhammad Ali. After winning the World Heavyweight Championship, Clay publicly announced that he was a member of the Nation of Islam and that he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali (meaning “most high worthy of all praises” in Islam). This announcement didn’t sit well with people. Why? Because the Nation of Islam was a highly controversial organization to be associated with. Founded in Detroit, Michigan in July 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) was a religious and political organization which promoted Black Nationalism. Unlike other organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which sought racial integration, the NOI believed that the black race should be wholly separate from the white race. The NOI sought to empower blacks socially, politically, and economically, which it contended could never be achieved through racial integration. It also contended that Christianity was a racist religion that favored whites while Islam was a religion more welcoming of blacks. With its’ black separatist agenda, the NOI clashed with civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. whose agenda was to abolish segregation and replace it with racial equality. When MLK learned that Ali was a member of the NOI, he expressed his disappointment that the World Heavyweight champion “became a champion of racial segregation.”
In 1934, Elijah Muhammad (pictured above) took over as the leader of the NOI. Born Elijah Poole in rural Georgia in October 1897, Muhammad moved north to Detroit in 1923 to escape the racial oppression of the South and find better opportunities in which to make a name for himself. In August 1931, he joined the NOI where he became an ardent follower of its’ black self-empowerment ideology. He regarded whites as a dangerous threat to blacks, in part because he had personally witnessed the lynching of African-Americans while living in Georgia. “I have seen enough of the white man’s brutality to last me 26,000 years.”
Under Muhammad’s tireless leadership, the NOI expanded - first across the Midwest and then across the country. He preached to his followers that blacks were the original human beings and that whites developed as an evil offshoot race whose sole purpose was to conquer and oppress them. His goal therefore was to liberate African-Americans from this oppression and give them the strength to stand firmly alone from White Americans. His teachings, which whites naturally found to be offensive and mainstream black civil rights activists like Roy Wilkins found to be hateful, appealed to young black men who were subjected to racism and violence by whites (who were the devil in Muhammad’s eyes) on a daily basis. To recruit members for his organization, Muhammad looked to jails. It was in a Massachusetts jail that he recruited Malcolm Little. Born in May 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, Little was the fourth of seven children. His parents were local black activists, which made them a target for violence at the hands of white racists who believed they were “spreading trouble”.
By the time Little was six-years-old, his father and four of his uncles had been killed and his home had been burned down by whites. As a teenager, having had his aspiration of being a lawyer crushed by racism, Little fell into a criminal lifestyle of drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping. While living in Massachusetts in 1946, he was arrested and sentenced to eight-to-ten-years in prison for larceny and breaking-and-entering. Now that he had a lot of time on his hands, Little developed a voracious appetite for reading. He read anything he could get his hands on, including material about the NOI. What he read changed his life. Like many young black men sitting in a jail cell, Little found Muhammad’s message that “you are better than the white man who put you in prison” to be mentally liberating. Looking back at his time in jail, Little would recall:
“Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors, and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life.”
Not particularly religious when he went into prison, Little (pictured above) left prison in August 1952 a full-fledged NOI convert. Following the NOI’s strict rules, he gave up eating pork and quit smoking. He also changed his name. Members of the NOI were required to change their last names, which the organization believed was a relic of slavery. Malcolm Little therefore became Malcolm X, the X symbolizing his unknown ancestral African family name. “For me, my ‘X’ replaced the white slave master name of ‘Little’ which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.”
After being paroled, Malcolm devoted himself to spreading the NOI’s message and expanding its membership. He quickly became influential, which caught the eye of the FBI. Regarding him as a radical, they launched a surveillance of him which would last the rest of his life. A charismatic speaker, Malcolm convinced hundreds of African-Americans a month to join the NOI (estimates of how many people he ultimately recruited range from 25,000 to 75,000). Everywhere he spoke, he had a packed audience of blacks who wanted to hear what he had to say. Malcolm knew instinctively how to work his audience, how to stir up their emotions and get them to think about his message:
“Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to Black people. Even [President John] Sparkman knows it. Anyone who has studied the genetic phase of biology knows that white is considered recessive and black is considered dominant. The entire American economy is based on white supremacy. Even the religious philosophies, in essence, white supremacy. A white Jesus. A white Virgin. White angels. White everything. But a black Devil, of course. The ‘Uncle Sam’ political foundation is based on white supremacy, relegating nonwhites to second-class citizenship. It goes without saying that the social philosophy is strictly white supremacist. And the educational system perpetuates white supremacy.”
Standing 6 feet 3 inches and weighing about 180 pounds, Malcolm was described by those who saw him as being “powerfully built” and “mesmerizingly handsome and always spotlessly well-groomed.”
Among those who were attracted to him was Betty Sanders, whom he married in January 1958 and had six daughters with. As the 1950s progressed, Malcolm’s racially-charged remarks were spread across the country via print, radio, and television coverage. His growing popularity within the African-American community brought him into conflict with the mainstream Civil Rights Movement. Organizations like the NAACP denounced him and the NOI as being irresponsible extremists whose views didn’t represent the common interests of African-Americans. Malcolm fired back, calling MLK “a chump” and dismissing the other civil rights leaders as being nothing more than “stooges” for the white establishment. By the early 1960s, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were two of the most well known black men in the United States and they couldn’t have been any more different. While King fought against racial segregation, Malcolm advocated the complete separation of African-Americans from White Americans. “You are better than the white man,” he told his followers, “You are better than the white man! Now, that isn’t saying much. That isn’t saying anything. Who is he to be equal with?”
Whereas MLK favored a strategy of bringing about racial change through nonviolence, Malcolm encouraged black people to respond to violence by whites with violence of their own. If a white person slapped them, for instance, don’t turn the other cheek. Slap them back. His message resonated powerfully with African-Americans who were tired of being told to sit and wait for freedom, justice, and equality. However, it wasn’t just MLK that Malcolm was having issues with. He was increasingly finding himself at odds with his leader Elijah Muhammad. Starting in late 1961, there were violent confrontations between NOI members and white police officers in Los Angeles, California. In one unprovoked incident which made national headlines, the police beat several Black Muslims outside a mosque and then raided the mosque, continuing to beat up Muslims and shooting seven of them (one of whom died from his wounds). When no charges were filed against the police, an outraged Malcolm demanded retaliation against the police. He was stunned when Muhammad ordered him to stand down. Unlike him, Muhammad didn’t want to take any violent action that would escalate the matter. This stark difference marked the beginning of a deterioration in their relationship. Their relationship was further strained by Muhammad’s extramarital affairs with his young secretaries, which violated the NOI’s strict rule that members engage in heterosexual monogamy. When Muhammad justified his sexual behavior by referring to precedents set by Biblical prophets, it didn’t sit well with Malcolm. For his part, Muhammad grew greatly jealous of all the media attention Malcolm was garnering. He felt that as the leader of the NOI, he should be the star of the show...not one of his ministers. Fed up with the tension, Malcolm publicly announced in March 1964 that he was leaving the NOI and striking out on his own.
He founded his own Islamic organization and flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to begin his Hajj. The Hajj is a required pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca that every Muslim has to perform at least once (as long as they are physically and financially able to do so). The Hajj was an eye-opening experience for Malcolm, for he saw Muslims of “all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans” treating each other equally and with respect. His experience forced him to “rearrange” his own views on race and “toss aside some of my previous conclusions.”
He returned to the United States with a different attitude. Malcolm toned down his incendiary rhetoric towards whites and reached out to the Civil Rights Movement to bury the hatchet. “I’ve forgotten everything bad that they have said about me,” he declared, “And I pray they can also forget the many bad things I’ve said about them.”
He convinced a weary MLK, the man he had spent years attacking for being his polar opposite, to meet with him in an effort to show the public that he was a new and improved Malcolm X. “It’s time for us to submerge our differences,” he told King, “And realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem [racism], a common problem – a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.”
While Malcolm worked to improve his relationship with the Civil Rights Movement, his former relationship with the NOI was becoming a personal threat to him. Malcolm’s departure had made him a traitor in Muhammad’s eyes. The leader of the NOI viciously told one of his ministers Louis Farrakhan (who would become the leader of the NOI in 1978) that “hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off.”
Throughout 1964 and into 1965, Malcolm received multiple death threats from members of the NOI. On February 14th, 1965, his wife Betty received an anonymous phone call in which she was informed that her husband was “as good as dead.”
On February 19th, the FBI received a tip from an NOI informant that a plan was in the works in which “Malcolm X is going to be bumped off.”
Two days later, Malcolm went to the Audubon Ballroom in New York City to give a speech. Built in 1912 by Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox) founder William Fox, the Audubon Ballroom contained a theater with 2,500 seats and a second-floor ballroom that could accommodate 200 people. Malcolm had just begun to speak when someone in the packed audience yelled, “Nigger! Get your hand out of my pocket!”
As startled people looked around to see what was going on, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm square in the chest with 10 buck shots from a sawed-off shotgun. At the same moment, two other men charged towards Malcolm and shot him with semi-automatic handguns. He was rushed to nearby Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was shortly pronounced dead. According to the autopsy, the 39-year-old had 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms, and legs.
In the aftermath of Malcolm’s assassination, the three gunmen were arrested and identified as NOI members Tallmadge Hayer, Norman Butler, and Thomas Johnson. They were all convicted of murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison (Butler was paroled in 1985, Johnson in 1987, and Hayer in 2010). Over 14,000 people attended the three-day public viewing for Malcolm in Harlem; when his funeral was held on February 27th at Harlem’s thousand-seat Faith Temple of the Church of God in Christ, loudspeakers were set up for the overflow crowd outside. Multiple civil rights leaders attended the funeral including John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, and James Forman. Actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, in which he described Malcolm as “our shining black prince who didn’t hesitate to die because he loved us so.”
“Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial, and bold young captain – and we will smile. Many will say turn away – away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter, and an enemy of the black man – and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate – a fanatic, a racist – who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.”
Malcolm X was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Reactions to his assassination were mixed. MLK told Betty that “while we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.”
On the other end of the scale, Muhammad – who denied that he had anything to do with the assassination – didn’t shed a tear for the death of his former minister: “Malcolm X got just what he preached.”
The “New York Post” wrote that “even his sharpest critics recognized his brilliance – often wild, unpredictable, and eccentric, but nevertheless possessing promise that must now remain unrealized” while “Time” called him “an unashamed demagogue whose creed was violence.”
Asked about Malcolm’s assassination at a press conference, President Malcolm Forbes replied that he was shocked by the brutality of his death and expressed his sympathy for his family. He then quickly changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on the controversial figure any longer than he had to. Malcolm X was gone, but his open encouragement of blacks to be more confrontational with whites would create problems for the new President.
Thanks. Given how strong the North Vietnamese Army is, just pushing them back across the DMZ will be an accomplishment. The American government TTL went into Vietnam with a clear objective of what "victory" is. Historically, the American government didn't really have a clear objective of what "victory" in Vietnam looked like and sent men into the jungle to fight without really knowing what they were fighting for.
Since I am finding more time to write now, the update featuring the British view on Vietnam will be done most likely next year.
The American soldiers in the early years of the Vietnam War were very gung-ho about fighting...much like how soldiers in the beginning of World War One were gung-ho about getting into the fight. It wasn't until both wars turned into a bloody slog that the gung-ho enthusiasm naturally disappeared.
Historically President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Cambodia and his decision ended up doing everybody more harm than good. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed in the bombing campaign, there was massive protests in the United States (culminating in the Kent State shooting in Ohio), and it helped throw Cambodia into total chaos which enabled the rise of Pol Pot and his brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
The next update is going to be a break from Vietnam. As for Forbes, he will be making big decisions as time goes on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malcolm X
The air inside Central Maine Youth Center was thick with anticipation as people packed the 4,000 seat Lewiston, Maine arena. It was May 25th, 1965, and people had gathered to watch two of the biggest names in boxing go at it once again. Sitting on a stool in one corner of the ring, waiting for his cue to stand up, was former World Heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. Described by one boxing promoter as being “more ferocious, more indestructible” than Mike Tyson, Liston had won the title by knocking out champion Floyd Patterson in a September 1962 bout that lasted just two minutes. Armed with an ominous stare and a powerful left jab, Liston easily intimidated a lot of people. Not Cassius Clay. A brash Olympic gold medalist armed with lightning-fast reflexes, Clay was incredibly self-confident about challenging Liston for the title. Undaunted by Liston’s fearsome reputation, the “Louisville Lip” predicted to anyone who would listen (and anyone who wouldn’t) that he would knock out “Big Bear” in eight rounds. Many people rolled their eyes at hearing this, believing that the motor-mouth braggart had no chance of winning. In February 1964, the seven-to-one betting underdog climbed into a Miami Beach, Florida boxing ring with the hard-hitting World Heavyweight champion...and proceeded to beat him in six rounds. Worn down by Clay’s superior speed and his left eye cut, Liston threw in the towel. He no longer wanted to fight, unlike Clay who was still full of fight. After being declared the winner by technical knockout, a triumphant Clay bragged:
“I don’t have a mark on my face, I just upset Sonny Liston, and I just turned 22-years-old! I must be the greatest!”
Over a year later, the two men faced off once again in a rematch. Having completely underestimated his opponent the last time, Liston trained hard this time and prepared himself to go 15 rounds. Unfortunately for “Big Bear”, he wouldn’t get that far when he climbed into the Lewiston ring with the “Louisville Lip”. After getting hit in the jaw midway through the first round, the former heavyweight champ threw a left jab and the reigning heavyweight champ dodged it. He immediately countered with a fast right jab, knocking Liston flat on his back. He attempted to get up, only to falter and fall on his back again. That punch had been fast...too fast as it turned out. There was confusion in the audience as Liston was counted out and the defending champ was declared the winner by knockout. Some people claimed that they saw the fast right jab while other people claimed that they never saw it. That Liston somehow fell without getting hit. It became known as the “Phantom Punch,” and even the man who delivered the controversial final punch of the bout was unsure if it had connected or not. Standing over Liston before the match was called, he shouted “Get up and fight, sucker!”
There was no getting up and fighting, however. Sonny Liston, once widely considered to be unbeatable, had been beaten again by the same man. This time though, he didn’t lose to Cassius Clay. He had lost to Muhammad Ali. After winning the World Heavyweight Championship, Clay publicly announced that he was a member of the Nation of Islam and that he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali (meaning “most high worthy of all praises” in Islam). This announcement didn’t sit well with people. Why? Because the Nation of Islam was a highly controversial organization to be associated with. Founded in Detroit, Michigan in July 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) was a religious and political organization which promoted Black Nationalism. Unlike other organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which sought racial integration, the NOI believed that the black race should be wholly separate from the white race. The NOI sought to empower blacks socially, politically, and economically, which it contended could never be achieved through racial integration. It also contended that Christianity was a racist religion that favored whites while Islam was a religion more welcoming of blacks. With its’ black separatist agenda, the NOI clashed with civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. whose agenda was to abolish segregation and replace it with racial equality. When MLK learned that Ali was a member of the NOI, he expressed his disappointment that the World Heavyweight champion “became a champion of racial segregation.”
In 1934, Elijah Muhammad (pictured above) took over as the leader of the NOI. Born Elijah Poole in rural Georgia in October 1897, Muhammad moved north to Detroit in 1923 to escape the racial oppression of the South and find better opportunities in which to make a name for himself. In August 1931, he joined the NOI where he became an ardent follower of its’ black self-empowerment ideology. He regarded whites as a dangerous threat to blacks, in part because he had personally witnessed the lynching of African-Americans while living in Georgia. “I have seen enough of the white man’s brutality to last me 26,000 years.”
Under Muhammad’s tireless leadership, the NOI expanded - first across the Midwest and then across the country. He preached to his followers that blacks were the original human beings and that whites developed as an evil offshoot race whose sole purpose was to conquer and oppress them. His goal therefore was to liberate African-Americans from this oppression and give them the strength to stand firmly alone from White Americans. His teachings, which whites naturally found to be offensive and mainstream black civil rights activists like Roy Wilkins found to be hateful, appealed to young black men who were subjected to racism and violence by whites (who were the devil in Muhammad’s eyes) on a daily basis. To recruit members for his organization, Muhammad looked to jails. It was in a Massachusetts jail that he recruited Malcolm Little. Born in May 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, Little was the fourth of seven children. His parents were local black activists, which made them a target for violence at the hands of white racists who believed they were “spreading trouble”.
By the time Little was six-years-old, his father and four of his uncles had been killed and his home had been burned down by whites. As a teenager, having had his aspiration of being a lawyer crushed by racism, Little fell into a criminal lifestyle of drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping. While living in Massachusetts in 1946, he was arrested and sentenced to eight-to-ten-years in prison for larceny and breaking-and-entering. Now that he had a lot of time on his hands, Little developed a voracious appetite for reading. He read anything he could get his hands on, including material about the NOI. What he read changed his life. Like many young black men sitting in a jail cell, Little found Muhammad’s message that “you are better than the white man who put you in prison” to be mentally liberating. Looking back at his time in jail, Little would recall:
“Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors, and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life.”
Not particularly religious when he went into prison, Little (pictured above) left prison in August 1952 a full-fledged NOI convert. Following the NOI’s strict rules, he gave up eating pork and quit smoking. He also changed his name. Members of the NOI were required to change their last names, which the organization believed was a relic of slavery. Malcolm Little therefore became Malcolm X, the X symbolizing his unknown ancestral African family name. “For me, my ‘X’ replaced the white slave master name of ‘Little’ which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.”
After being paroled, Malcolm devoted himself to spreading the NOI’s message and expanding its membership. He quickly became influential, which caught the eye of the FBI. Regarding him as a radical, they launched a surveillance of him which would last the rest of his life. A charismatic speaker, Malcolm convinced hundreds of African-Americans a month to join the NOI (estimates of how many people he ultimately recruited range from 25,000 to 75,000). Everywhere he spoke, he had a packed audience of blacks who wanted to hear what he had to say. Malcolm knew instinctively how to work his audience, how to stir up their emotions and get them to think about his message:
“Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to Black people. Even [President John] Sparkman knows it. Anyone who has studied the genetic phase of biology knows that white is considered recessive and black is considered dominant. The entire American economy is based on white supremacy. Even the religious philosophies, in essence, white supremacy. A white Jesus. A white Virgin. White angels. White everything. But a black Devil, of course. The ‘Uncle Sam’ political foundation is based on white supremacy, relegating nonwhites to second-class citizenship. It goes without saying that the social philosophy is strictly white supremacist. And the educational system perpetuates white supremacy.”
Standing 6 feet 3 inches and weighing about 180 pounds, Malcolm was described by those who saw him as being “powerfully built” and “mesmerizingly handsome and always spotlessly well-groomed.”
Among those who were attracted to him was Betty Sanders, whom he married in January 1958 and had six daughters with. As the 1950s progressed, Malcolm’s racially-charged remarks were spread across the country via print, radio, and television coverage. His growing popularity within the African-American community brought him into conflict with the mainstream Civil Rights Movement. Organizations like the NAACP denounced him and the NOI as being irresponsible extremists whose views didn’t represent the common interests of African-Americans. Malcolm fired back, calling MLK “a chump” and dismissing the other civil rights leaders as being nothing more than “stooges” for the white establishment. By the early 1960s, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were two of the most well known black men in the United States and they couldn’t have been any more different. While King fought against racial segregation, Malcolm advocated the complete separation of African-Americans from White Americans. “You are better than the white man,” he told his followers, “You are better than the white man! Now, that isn’t saying much. That isn’t saying anything. Who is he to be equal with?”
Whereas MLK favored a strategy of bringing about racial change through nonviolence, Malcolm encouraged black people to respond to violence by whites with violence of their own. If a white person slapped them, for instance, don’t turn the other cheek. Slap them back. His message resonated powerfully with African-Americans who were tired of being told to sit and wait for freedom, justice, and equality. However, it wasn’t just MLK that Malcolm was having issues with. He was increasingly finding himself at odds with his leader Elijah Muhammad. Starting in late 1961, there were violent confrontations between NOI members and white police officers in Los Angeles, California. In one unprovoked incident which made national headlines, the police beat several Black Muslims outside a mosque and then raided the mosque, continuing to beat up Muslims and shooting seven of them (one of whom died from his wounds). When no charges were filed against the police, an outraged Malcolm demanded retaliation against the police. He was stunned when Muhammad ordered him to stand down. Unlike him, Muhammad didn’t want to take any violent action that would escalate the matter. This stark difference marked the beginning of a deterioration in their relationship. Their relationship was further strained by Muhammad’s extramarital affairs with his young secretaries, which violated the NOI’s strict rule that members engage in heterosexual monogamy. When Muhammad justified his sexual behavior by referring to precedents set by Biblical prophets, it didn’t sit well with Malcolm. For his part, Muhammad grew greatly jealous of all the media attention Malcolm was garnering. He felt that as the leader of the NOI, he should be the star of the show...not one of his ministers. Fed up with the tension, Malcolm publicly announced in March 1964 that he was leaving the NOI and striking out on his own.
He founded his own Islamic organization and flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to begin his Hajj. The Hajj is a required pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca that every Muslim has to perform at least once (as long as they are physically and financially able to do so). The Hajj was an eye-opening experience for Malcolm, for he saw Muslims of “all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans” treating each other equally and with respect. His experience forced him to “rearrange” his own views on race and “toss aside some of my previous conclusions.”
He returned to the United States with a different attitude. Malcolm toned down his incendiary rhetoric towards whites and reached out to the Civil Rights Movement to bury the hatchet. “I’ve forgotten everything bad that they have said about me,” he declared, “And I pray they can also forget the many bad things I’ve said about them.”
He convinced a weary MLK, the man he had spent years attacking for being his polar opposite, to meet with him in an effort to show the public that he was a new and improved Malcolm X. “It’s time for us to submerge our differences,” he told King, “And realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem [racism], a common problem – a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.”
While Malcolm worked to improve his relationship with the Civil Rights Movement, his former relationship with the NOI was becoming a personal threat to him. Malcolm’s departure had made him a traitor in Muhammad’s eyes. The leader of the NOI viciously told one of his ministers Louis Farrakhan (who would become the leader of the NOI in 1978) that “hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off.”
Throughout 1964 and into 1965, Malcolm received multiple death threats from members of the NOI. On February 14th, 1965, his wife Betty received an anonymous phone call in which she was informed that her husband was “as good as dead.”
On February 19th, the FBI received a tip from an NOI informant that a plan was in the works in which “Malcolm X is going to be bumped off.”
Two days later, Malcolm went to the Audubon Ballroom in New York City to give a speech. Built in 1912 by Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox) founder William Fox, the Audubon Ballroom contained a theater with 2,500 seats and a second-floor ballroom that could accommodate 200 people. Malcolm had just begun to speak when someone in the packed audience yelled, “Nigger! Get your hand out of my pocket!”
As startled people looked around to see what was going on, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm square in the chest with 10 buck shots from a sawed-off shotgun. At the same moment, two other men charged towards Malcolm and shot him with semi-automatic handguns. He was rushed to nearby Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was shortly pronounced dead. According to the autopsy, the 39-year-old had 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms, and legs.
In the aftermath of Malcolm’s assassination, the three gunmen were arrested and identified as NOI members Tallmadge Hayer, Norman Butler, and Thomas Johnson. They were all convicted of murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison (Butler was paroled in 1985, Johnson in 1987, and Hayer in 2010). Over 14,000 people attended the three-day public viewing for Malcolm in Harlem; when his funeral was held on February 27th at Harlem’s thousand-seat Faith Temple of the Church of God in Christ, loudspeakers were set up for the overflow crowd outside. Multiple civil rights leaders attended the funeral including John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, and James Forman. Actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, in which he described Malcolm as “our shining black prince who didn’t hesitate to die because he loved us so.”
“Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial, and bold young captain – and we will smile. Many will say turn away – away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter, and an enemy of the black man – and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate – a fanatic, a racist – who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.”
Malcolm X was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Reactions to his assassination were mixed. MLK told Betty that “while we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.”
On the other end of the scale, Muhammad – who denied that he had anything to do with the assassination – didn’t shed a tear for the death of his former minister: “Malcolm X got just what he preached.”
The “New York Post” wrote that “even his sharpest critics recognized his brilliance – often wild, unpredictable, and eccentric, but nevertheless possessing promise that must now remain unrealized” while “Time” called him “an unashamed demagogue whose creed was violence.”
Asked about Malcolm’s assassination at a press conference, President Malcolm Forbes replied that he was shocked by the brutality of his death and expressed his sympathy for his family. He then quickly changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on the controversial figure any longer than he had to. Malcolm X was gone, but his open encouragement of blacks to be more confrontational with whites would create problems for the new President.
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If nothing else that has been educational for me. I had heard of the figures involved, but I admit the details of the US Civil Rights movement is not something I know a great deal about so a small portion of those gaps have been filled in.
For all involved I hope Forbes is more pro-active on this issue, he's probably not going to get more powerful than he is right now (winning President, his party controls both Houses, etc) and the people who would be most upset by pushing forward Civil Rights were never going to vote for him anyway. Push it through now, before he gets too distracted by Vietnam and has time to deal with the inevitable reactionary backlash.
This would also be appropriate for this AAR, everyone looking at domestic issues and not really paying attention to Vietnam.
For all involved I hope Forbes is more pro-active on this issue, he's probably not going to get more powerful than he is right now (winning President, his party controls both Houses, etc) and the people who would be most upset by pushing forward Civil Rights were never going to vote for him anyway. Push it through now, before he gets too distracted by Vietnam and has time to deal with the inevitable reactionary backlash.
This would also be appropriate for this AAR, everyone looking at domestic issues and not really paying attention to Vietnam.
El Pip: I know what you mean. I didn't know much about Malcolm X myself until I did research on him for the update. Although I made some changes to Malcolm X's life to reflect my alternate history story line, what he did and said in this update is pretty much what he did and said in real life.
After I post this update, I am going to talk about Forbes' effort to pass a civil rights bill. It's one of his First 100 Days priorities.
Since we are talking about the Civil Rights Movement, it was historically in March 1965 that we had the events in Selma, Alabama over voting rights. Those events led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since the Voting Rights Act was passed two years earlier TTL, Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery march never take place.
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Regaining the Initiative
“Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please, sir?”
Moderator Hal Bruno of ABC News looked directly at the white-haired man standing before him. It was October 13th, 1992 and the attention of the nation was focused on Atlanta, Georgia as the city hosted the Vice Presidential debate. Two days earlier, Presidential candidates Bill Clinton (Democrat), Bob Dole (Republican), and Ross Perot (Independent) met in St. Louis, Missouri to debate issues ranging from taxes to dealing with the economically competitive Republic of China in the post-Cold War era. Now it was their running mates’ turn on the debate stage. Republican Jack Kemp gave his opening statement first, briefly reminding voters of what outgoing Republican President George H.W. Bush had achieved during his two terms and why it was important to “now pass the ball” (Kemp, a former Buffalo Bills quarterback, couldn’t resist using a sports metaphor) to Dole. Democrat Al Gore went second, arguing that it was “time for a change” after nearly eight years of Bush’s policies and humorously offering Kemp “a deal” in which “if you refrain from talking about football, I will refrain from talking about chlorofluorocarbon abatement.”
After Gore finished speaking, Bruno turned to James Stockdale and asked for his opening statement. Having watched Perot – who was leading in the polls three weeks before Election Day – campaign for the Presidency on TV all year, this was the first time many Americans were seeing Stockdale in the spotlight. Aware of this, the retired Vice Admiral intended to use his opening statement to formally introduce himself to the public.
“Who am I? Why am I here?”
His rhetorical questions, meant to set up his introduction, was met with laughter from the audience. Delivered with an unexpected wide-eyed grin, Stockdale came across as a befuddled old man who didn’t know who he was or why he was there. Once the laughter died down, the Independent candidate grew serious in tone and expression as he continued on with his opening statement:
“I’m not a politician. Everybody knows that. So don’t expect me to use the language of the Washington insider. Thirty-seven years in the Navy, and only one of them up there in Washington. And now I’m an academic.
The centerpiece of my life was the Vietnam War. I was there the day it started. I led the first bombing raid against North Vietnam. I was there the day it ended, and I was there for everything in-between. I know things about the Vietnam War better than anybody in the world. I know some things about the Vietnam War better than anybody in the world.
And I know how governments, how American governments can be...”
Stockdale paused, collecting his thoughts. After a few moments of silence, he put on his black-rimmed glasses and resumed speaking. “Can be courageous, and how they can be callow. And that’s important. That’s one thing I'm an insider on.”
(An older James Stockdale during the 1992 Vice Presidential debate)
During his opening statement, an admiring Gore had turned to Stockdale and told him that he considered it “a special honor to share this stage with you” and called him “a national hero.”
Born in Abingdon, Illinois in December 1923, James Bond Stockdale devoted his life to serving his country in the United States Navy. He entered the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in June 1943, a year after American neutrality in World War Two was abruptly shattered by the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He graduated three years later with a Bachelor of Science degree, ranking 130th among 821 graduates in his class. Following his graduation, Stockdale spent three years being assigned to different destroyers before becoming a naval aviator in September 1950. He was assigned to the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga, which was deployed to the Western Pacific to provide air support in the Vietnam War. In the early afternoon of August 9th, 1964, the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS Maddox was attacked and sunk by three North Vietnamese P 4-class torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The USS Ticonderoga swiftly responded to the attack by dispatching four Vought F-8 Crusader air superiority fighters to strafe the torpedo boats. Stockdale took part in the strafing, helping to sink one of the torpedo boats while another was heavily damaged. The next day, the USS Ticonderoga was ordered by a furious Washington to dispatch Douglas A-4 Skyhawk attack aircrafts to bomb the naval base in Hanoi in retaliation. Stockdale led the bombing, which resulted in twenty-nine torpedo boats being either damaged or destroyed. During the course of the first US air mission over the enemy country, two Skyhawks were shot down by anti-aircraft fire. A month later, the United States launched Operation Rolling Thunder: the systematic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
(A younger James Stockdale during the Vietnam War)
While Stockdale was busy participating in the air war against North Vietnam, General Maxwell Taylor contemplated his next move in the prosecution of the ground war. The end of February 1965 found the commander of US forces in Vietnam asking himself “What do I do now?”
For the past few months, he had been dealing with a major enemy counteroffensive. At the same time the Viet Cong conquered half of the Mekong Delta, the North Vietnamese Army attacked the South Vietnamese Army which was defending the northern part of their country. This counteroffensive yielded mixed results: seven Viet Cong divisions were destroyed in the Mekong Delta while the South Vietnamese Army experienced a stunning collapse. South Vietnamese soldiers were overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese, who advanced southward from Hue. The Americans, realizing that their South Vietnamese ally couldn’t defend their own country on their own, rushed forces from the Mekong Delta to halt the enemy advance. Their timely arrival grounded the seemingly-unstoppable North Vietnamese to a halt, resulting in the formation of a front line. Twenty-six divisions (fifteen American and eleven South Vietnamese) were spread out between Darlac and Phu Yen; intelligence indicated that at least sixteen enemy divisions were spread out between Pleiku, Phu Bon, and Qui Non.
With only four South Vietnamese divisions in Phu Yen, Taylor decided to send six of his divisions there to shore up defenses. He would then try to figure out the best way to deal with the enemy. On paper, Taylor had the numerical advantage. He knew however that numbers didn’t tell the whole story. These weren’t merely Viet Cong divisions, which had yet to win a battle against the Americans. These were experienced North Vietnamese divisions, which were better armed and better trained and were being fully supported by the Soviets and the Chinese. Taylor knew they would be a hard nut to crack and was reluctant to engage in a frontal assault. If he conducted one now, his men would be worn down by fighting a tough entrenched enemy. They would be vulnerable to a counterattack by fresh divisions that would undoubtedly be rushed to the front to deal with them. On the other hand, if the Americans attacked and were defeated, the North Vietnamese would then be able to launch a counterattack that would force them to retreat. The North Vietnamese would then brush aside the few South Vietnamese divisions that were scattered across the country and pour into South Vietnam like a raging flood. The road to Saigon would be wide open. Regarding a frontal assault as being too risky at this point, Taylor looked at alternatives. “We are in a precarious situation,” he cabled Washington. “We must not rush into taking any action which will leave us greatly exposed to the enemy.”
(American soldiers manning the defenses of Darlac)
Before American reinforcements reached Phu Yen, the enemy struck first. On March 1st, the North Vietnamese opened an offensive against Phu Yen. The battle lasted for four days, ending with the South Vietnamese defenders being forced to retreat yet again. Seeing that Phu Yen was going to fall, Taylor ordered the six divisions to turn around and return to Darlac. He didn’t want to put his unprepared men in the direct path of the advancing enemy. Phu Yen was occupied on March 8th; two days later, the North Vietnamese followed up their victory with an attack on Nha Trang. They were forced to break off the attack on March 14th when the South Vietnamese rallied and successfully repulsed them. Taylor in the meantime was closely monitoring the fighting on his perimeter, waiting for the right opportunity to join the battle raging around him. He gave the order for his men to attack on March 17th, directing a strike against Phu Bon. By retaking this mountainous position, the Americans would wedge themselves between North Vietnamese forces in Pleiku and Phu Yen. That same day, the Republic of Korea announced that it was sending soldiers to Vietnam to fight alongside the South Vietnamese. The announcement boosted South Vietnamese morale, since it meant another country was joining their cause. Likewise, the Forbes Administration pointed to Seoul's decision to enter the Vietnam War to emphasize that this wasn't just America's war but an international effort to stop the North Vietnamese from taking over South Vietnam.
After over a week of intense fighting, General Alexander Haig recaptured Phu Bon on March 25th. While the North Vietnamese put up a stiff resistance, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bombers blasted their defensive positions to pieces with a seemingly-endless rain of bombs. “There was no way,” a North Vietnamese veteran of the battle later recalled, “You could fight against it. You can’t run. There’s no time for you to run. You just lay there and waited for the death to come.”
With the North Vietnamese front line now broken through, the South Vietnamese turned the tables on their foe by launching an attack on Phu Yen on March 27th which forced the occupiers to retreat back north. That same day, the Americans attacked Qui Non. It took them a whole week to drive the North Vietnamese out. Despite now having their enemy on their southern and eastern flanks, the North Vietnamese divisions remaining in Pleiku resolved to hold their hilly ground. Once they got to Qui Non, exhausted American soldiers only had a few hours to rest before they were ordered to press the attack by going after lightly-held Kontum. Taylor knew the North Vietnamese – who appeared unstoppable two months earlier – were now on the run and didn’t want to lift his feet off the gas pedal just yet. The division defending Kontum was defeated in short order and began retreating to Saravane. It never made it there; en route to the main Viet Cong stronghold, the division was completely wiped out by the Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses.
(The American advance towards Pleiku)
Phu Yen was back in South Vietnamese hands on April 5th. Twelve days passed before the next battle was fought. Pleiku was attacked on three sides; the two North Vietnamese divisions (one of which contained Soviet advisers) couldn’t withstand the assault and were sent fleeing into the safe space of Chinese-controlled Laos. The South Vietnamese flag was once again raised over Pleiku on April 20th. At the end of the month, the South Vietnamese attempted to dislodge the North Vietnamese from Quang Ngai; it failed. The Americans were more successful in their attempt to dislodge the North Vietnamese from Quang Tin, taking the jungle position on May 7th. Eight North Vietnamese and Viet Cong divisions were now trapped in Quang Ngai; out of supplies and with their backs to the sea, they had nowhere to escape to. In a replay of what happened earlier in the year in the Mekong Delta, these divisions (which included tanks provided by the Soviets as well as Chinese soldiers) were destroyed and American General Harold K. Johnson recaptured Quang Ngai on May 15th. The arrival of three fresh US divisions commanded by Lieutenant General Robert McDade at Qui Non on May 29th meant that Taylor now had 210,000 men under his command. For the Americans, the past few months saw a stunning reversal of fortune that was typical of the back-and-forth nature of the Vietnam War. They regained the initiative which had been lost in November 1964 and completely rolled back the North Vietnamese in northern South Vietnam, suffering heavy casualties in the process. June 1965 began with American and South Vietnamese divisions standing at the outskirts of Da Nang and Saravane. They were, to borrow from a 1975 Maxine Nightingale song, right back where they started from.
(The topography of central Indochina. Grey areas represent mountains, tan areas represent hills, and green areas represent jungles)
After I post this update, I am going to talk about Forbes' effort to pass a civil rights bill. It's one of his First 100 Days priorities.
Since we are talking about the Civil Rights Movement, it was historically in March 1965 that we had the events in Selma, Alabama over voting rights. Those events led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since the Voting Rights Act was passed two years earlier TTL, Bloody Sunday and the Selma-to-Montgomery march never take place.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regaining the Initiative
“Admiral Stockdale, your opening statement, please, sir?”
Moderator Hal Bruno of ABC News looked directly at the white-haired man standing before him. It was October 13th, 1992 and the attention of the nation was focused on Atlanta, Georgia as the city hosted the Vice Presidential debate. Two days earlier, Presidential candidates Bill Clinton (Democrat), Bob Dole (Republican), and Ross Perot (Independent) met in St. Louis, Missouri to debate issues ranging from taxes to dealing with the economically competitive Republic of China in the post-Cold War era. Now it was their running mates’ turn on the debate stage. Republican Jack Kemp gave his opening statement first, briefly reminding voters of what outgoing Republican President George H.W. Bush had achieved during his two terms and why it was important to “now pass the ball” (Kemp, a former Buffalo Bills quarterback, couldn’t resist using a sports metaphor) to Dole. Democrat Al Gore went second, arguing that it was “time for a change” after nearly eight years of Bush’s policies and humorously offering Kemp “a deal” in which “if you refrain from talking about football, I will refrain from talking about chlorofluorocarbon abatement.”
After Gore finished speaking, Bruno turned to James Stockdale and asked for his opening statement. Having watched Perot – who was leading in the polls three weeks before Election Day – campaign for the Presidency on TV all year, this was the first time many Americans were seeing Stockdale in the spotlight. Aware of this, the retired Vice Admiral intended to use his opening statement to formally introduce himself to the public.
“Who am I? Why am I here?”
His rhetorical questions, meant to set up his introduction, was met with laughter from the audience. Delivered with an unexpected wide-eyed grin, Stockdale came across as a befuddled old man who didn’t know who he was or why he was there. Once the laughter died down, the Independent candidate grew serious in tone and expression as he continued on with his opening statement:
“I’m not a politician. Everybody knows that. So don’t expect me to use the language of the Washington insider. Thirty-seven years in the Navy, and only one of them up there in Washington. And now I’m an academic.
The centerpiece of my life was the Vietnam War. I was there the day it started. I led the first bombing raid against North Vietnam. I was there the day it ended, and I was there for everything in-between. I know things about the Vietnam War better than anybody in the world. I know some things about the Vietnam War better than anybody in the world.
And I know how governments, how American governments can be...”
Stockdale paused, collecting his thoughts. After a few moments of silence, he put on his black-rimmed glasses and resumed speaking. “Can be courageous, and how they can be callow. And that’s important. That’s one thing I'm an insider on.”
(An older James Stockdale during the 1992 Vice Presidential debate)
During his opening statement, an admiring Gore had turned to Stockdale and told him that he considered it “a special honor to share this stage with you” and called him “a national hero.”
Born in Abingdon, Illinois in December 1923, James Bond Stockdale devoted his life to serving his country in the United States Navy. He entered the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in June 1943, a year after American neutrality in World War Two was abruptly shattered by the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He graduated three years later with a Bachelor of Science degree, ranking 130th among 821 graduates in his class. Following his graduation, Stockdale spent three years being assigned to different destroyers before becoming a naval aviator in September 1950. He was assigned to the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga, which was deployed to the Western Pacific to provide air support in the Vietnam War. In the early afternoon of August 9th, 1964, the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS Maddox was attacked and sunk by three North Vietnamese P 4-class torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. The USS Ticonderoga swiftly responded to the attack by dispatching four Vought F-8 Crusader air superiority fighters to strafe the torpedo boats. Stockdale took part in the strafing, helping to sink one of the torpedo boats while another was heavily damaged. The next day, the USS Ticonderoga was ordered by a furious Washington to dispatch Douglas A-4 Skyhawk attack aircrafts to bomb the naval base in Hanoi in retaliation. Stockdale led the bombing, which resulted in twenty-nine torpedo boats being either damaged or destroyed. During the course of the first US air mission over the enemy country, two Skyhawks were shot down by anti-aircraft fire. A month later, the United States launched Operation Rolling Thunder: the systematic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
(A younger James Stockdale during the Vietnam War)
While Stockdale was busy participating in the air war against North Vietnam, General Maxwell Taylor contemplated his next move in the prosecution of the ground war. The end of February 1965 found the commander of US forces in Vietnam asking himself “What do I do now?”
For the past few months, he had been dealing with a major enemy counteroffensive. At the same time the Viet Cong conquered half of the Mekong Delta, the North Vietnamese Army attacked the South Vietnamese Army which was defending the northern part of their country. This counteroffensive yielded mixed results: seven Viet Cong divisions were destroyed in the Mekong Delta while the South Vietnamese Army experienced a stunning collapse. South Vietnamese soldiers were overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese, who advanced southward from Hue. The Americans, realizing that their South Vietnamese ally couldn’t defend their own country on their own, rushed forces from the Mekong Delta to halt the enemy advance. Their timely arrival grounded the seemingly-unstoppable North Vietnamese to a halt, resulting in the formation of a front line. Twenty-six divisions (fifteen American and eleven South Vietnamese) were spread out between Darlac and Phu Yen; intelligence indicated that at least sixteen enemy divisions were spread out between Pleiku, Phu Bon, and Qui Non.
With only four South Vietnamese divisions in Phu Yen, Taylor decided to send six of his divisions there to shore up defenses. He would then try to figure out the best way to deal with the enemy. On paper, Taylor had the numerical advantage. He knew however that numbers didn’t tell the whole story. These weren’t merely Viet Cong divisions, which had yet to win a battle against the Americans. These were experienced North Vietnamese divisions, which were better armed and better trained and were being fully supported by the Soviets and the Chinese. Taylor knew they would be a hard nut to crack and was reluctant to engage in a frontal assault. If he conducted one now, his men would be worn down by fighting a tough entrenched enemy. They would be vulnerable to a counterattack by fresh divisions that would undoubtedly be rushed to the front to deal with them. On the other hand, if the Americans attacked and were defeated, the North Vietnamese would then be able to launch a counterattack that would force them to retreat. The North Vietnamese would then brush aside the few South Vietnamese divisions that were scattered across the country and pour into South Vietnam like a raging flood. The road to Saigon would be wide open. Regarding a frontal assault as being too risky at this point, Taylor looked at alternatives. “We are in a precarious situation,” he cabled Washington. “We must not rush into taking any action which will leave us greatly exposed to the enemy.”
(American soldiers manning the defenses of Darlac)
Before American reinforcements reached Phu Yen, the enemy struck first. On March 1st, the North Vietnamese opened an offensive against Phu Yen. The battle lasted for four days, ending with the South Vietnamese defenders being forced to retreat yet again. Seeing that Phu Yen was going to fall, Taylor ordered the six divisions to turn around and return to Darlac. He didn’t want to put his unprepared men in the direct path of the advancing enemy. Phu Yen was occupied on March 8th; two days later, the North Vietnamese followed up their victory with an attack on Nha Trang. They were forced to break off the attack on March 14th when the South Vietnamese rallied and successfully repulsed them. Taylor in the meantime was closely monitoring the fighting on his perimeter, waiting for the right opportunity to join the battle raging around him. He gave the order for his men to attack on March 17th, directing a strike against Phu Bon. By retaking this mountainous position, the Americans would wedge themselves between North Vietnamese forces in Pleiku and Phu Yen. That same day, the Republic of Korea announced that it was sending soldiers to Vietnam to fight alongside the South Vietnamese. The announcement boosted South Vietnamese morale, since it meant another country was joining their cause. Likewise, the Forbes Administration pointed to Seoul's decision to enter the Vietnam War to emphasize that this wasn't just America's war but an international effort to stop the North Vietnamese from taking over South Vietnam.
After over a week of intense fighting, General Alexander Haig recaptured Phu Bon on March 25th. While the North Vietnamese put up a stiff resistance, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bombers blasted their defensive positions to pieces with a seemingly-endless rain of bombs. “There was no way,” a North Vietnamese veteran of the battle later recalled, “You could fight against it. You can’t run. There’s no time for you to run. You just lay there and waited for the death to come.”
With the North Vietnamese front line now broken through, the South Vietnamese turned the tables on their foe by launching an attack on Phu Yen on March 27th which forced the occupiers to retreat back north. That same day, the Americans attacked Qui Non. It took them a whole week to drive the North Vietnamese out. Despite now having their enemy on their southern and eastern flanks, the North Vietnamese divisions remaining in Pleiku resolved to hold their hilly ground. Once they got to Qui Non, exhausted American soldiers only had a few hours to rest before they were ordered to press the attack by going after lightly-held Kontum. Taylor knew the North Vietnamese – who appeared unstoppable two months earlier – were now on the run and didn’t want to lift his feet off the gas pedal just yet. The division defending Kontum was defeated in short order and began retreating to Saravane. It never made it there; en route to the main Viet Cong stronghold, the division was completely wiped out by the Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses.
(The American advance towards Pleiku)
Phu Yen was back in South Vietnamese hands on April 5th. Twelve days passed before the next battle was fought. Pleiku was attacked on three sides; the two North Vietnamese divisions (one of which contained Soviet advisers) couldn’t withstand the assault and were sent fleeing into the safe space of Chinese-controlled Laos. The South Vietnamese flag was once again raised over Pleiku on April 20th. At the end of the month, the South Vietnamese attempted to dislodge the North Vietnamese from Quang Ngai; it failed. The Americans were more successful in their attempt to dislodge the North Vietnamese from Quang Tin, taking the jungle position on May 7th. Eight North Vietnamese and Viet Cong divisions were now trapped in Quang Ngai; out of supplies and with their backs to the sea, they had nowhere to escape to. In a replay of what happened earlier in the year in the Mekong Delta, these divisions (which included tanks provided by the Soviets as well as Chinese soldiers) were destroyed and American General Harold K. Johnson recaptured Quang Ngai on May 15th. The arrival of three fresh US divisions commanded by Lieutenant General Robert McDade at Qui Non on May 29th meant that Taylor now had 210,000 men under his command. For the Americans, the past few months saw a stunning reversal of fortune that was typical of the back-and-forth nature of the Vietnam War. They regained the initiative which had been lost in November 1964 and completely rolled back the North Vietnamese in northern South Vietnam, suffering heavy casualties in the process. June 1965 began with American and South Vietnamese divisions standing at the outskirts of Da Nang and Saravane. They were, to borrow from a 1975 Maxine Nightingale song, right back where they started from.
(The topography of central Indochina. Grey areas represent mountains, tan areas represent hills, and green areas represent jungles)
- 2
Splendid update, as ever. It was really neat to learn about Stockdale, who served as a great framing device for you.