Garden of Eden
A heart-warming novel sharing love, heroism, and the rite of passage during the Vietnam War
Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, & Johnson
Ho Chi Minh was our friend during the Second World War. His men rescued American fliers shot down by the Japanese. They performed heroic acts on behalf of the Allies against Imperial Japan. Toward the end of the war Ho sent word to President Roosevelt requesting recognition of Vietnam as a sovereign nation to get the Colonial French off the backs of the Vietnamese people. But Roosevelt was preoccupied with the Pacific, and a dying man.
President Truman chose to ignore Ho's request because France was an ally during WW2. Charles De Gaulle was an arrogant windbag similar to Bernard Montgomery. Harry Truman was more of the same vintage. This led to the first Vietnam War where French forces were defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu by General Giap's Viet Minh Communists. The French might have prevailed had the French politicians sent a relief column to the trapped soldiers, but like so many times in France's checkered political history the politicians dithered while their Foreign legion fought and died.
Ho Chi Minh was a national hero. He had driven the French out after nearly 100 years of colonial occupation. A national election was to be held to determine a new president. But the Diem regime in South Vietnam, friendly with the United States, was against elections. Ho might win, and Diem and his gang of political thugs would be out of power. Fighting broke out between the North and the South.
The British and the French both warned President Eisenhower not to get involved. They called it a civil war, telling him Ho Chi Minh would probably win the election. But Eisenhower believed in the Domino Theory. If one country goes communist, it spreads like a bad habit to its neighbors. Ike sent 300 military advisers to help train the South Vietnamese Army. The elections were blocked by the South, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency and American Special Forces. With Washington plotting against him, Ho Chi Minh turned to Moscow.
Ho was a nationalist more so than a communist, but Kennedy viewed North Vietnam with skepticism. President Kennedy believed in the Domino Theory the same as President Eisenhower. Ike advised John to send additional troops. In the meantime Ngo Dinh Diem had become a thorn in the side of American diplomacy. The South Vietnamese government was as crooked as a barrel of fishhooks, and their military was a mixed bag of professionals and clueless incompetents. The ARVN leadership in Saigon was no match for the battle-hardened North Vietnamese Army of Hanoi.
Two years into his presidency JFK was coming to believe that Vietnam was unwinnable. Many factors played a role, but Diem and his generals were the major stumbling blocks. The people didn't like Diem, and they didn't appreciate their dictatorial treatment at the hands of Diem's military. JFK was probably going to pull the plug if he won reelection.
Dallas doomed the United States to a land war in SE Asia. That was the very thing General MacArthur warned President Kennedy against in 1961. President Johnson and Robert McNamara didn't know a squat about the centuries old conflicts between China and Vietnam. They knew even less about Vietnam's culture or religion, and very little about Diem and his wicked brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The stage was set for disaster, and President Johnson jumped in with both clod hoppers.
Lyndon Baines Johnson micromanaged the Vietnam War from his air-conditioned oval office in Washington, DC. The Pentagon was seldom allowed to make independent decisions. The Air Force was told to bomb Viet Cong villages and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while Westmoreland scattered his ground troops across South Vietnam in WW1-style fire bases. Johnson and McNamara both feared China might enter the conflict on the side of the Communists. So North Vietnam was never invaded, the Trail was never cut, and Hanoi and Haiphong were never blown off the map. The war was run by a Texas school teacher and an Ivy League business executive. Militarily, both men were hopeless failures.