Turning Point: The Vietnam War, Part One
Almost eight years ago, I wrote a lengthy four-part review of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick 18-hour PBS series The Vietnam War. I concluded it was a bloated mediocrity that was, in some instances, not candid with its viewers. What it left out, especially concerning the origins of that conflict, made for a dubious presentation of history. That pretentious and bloated program tried to tell the story of American involvement in Vietnam without mentioning the names of Dean Acheson, Bao Dai, the Dulles brothers or Edward Lansdale. It was not possible to present that tragic event in such a manner. (Click here for my review https://www.kennedysandking.com/reviews/ken-burns-lynn-novick-the-vietnam-war-part-one)
I
I really did not think that anyone could make another series about Vietnam that was as intellectually shabby as what Burns and Novick produced. I was wrong. The new five-part series on Netflix, Turning Point: The Vietnam War, is just as bad. As we shall see, in some respects, it is even worse.
This show was put together by a company called Luminant, which operates out of LA, and it was directed by one Brian Knappenberger. He also served as an executive producer. There are four producers; the one who has been interviewed in the press is Doan Hoang Curtis. In going through the film credits, I could not find anyone billed as a writer, either in the front or end credits. This is a key point with this production since they bill everyone, even their “families, friends and strangers who supported us”. But no screenwriter? As we shall see, that is revealing.
The usual entry point for any Vietnam series is the French attempt to take back their colony of Indochina after World War II. (The Novick/Burns pastiche took it back further with the original attack on Indochina by France in the 19th century.). Surprisingly, this series did not do that.
Turning Point starts with the Kennedy administration, when, in fact, the United States had been involved for almost ten years when Kennedy took office. I soon began to see that there was a methodology behind this mangling of the record. The idea was to set up the Vietnam War as a battle within the Cold War of communism vs capitalism and to deliberately begin with Kennedy. The objective being to present two things as fact which are utterly wrong: 1.) Somehow Kennedy was a Cold Warrior and 2.) It was he who started the war.
What this film does to fit those square pegs into round holes is nothing less than what I would term a hatchet job on John Kennedy. For example, there is no mention of Kennedy’s visit to Saigon in 1951 and his consultations with reporter Seymour Topping and diplomat Edmund Gullion, who both told him that France would not win the war. This is an important elision since those discussions had a large impact on how Kennedy looked at conflicts in the Third World and at Indochina afterwards. (Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, pp. 14-15) As a result, Kennedy made speeches on this subject, specifically saying these conflicts were not about communism vs free enterprise; they were about nationalism and independence vs colonialism and imperialism. (Betting on the Africans, by Philip Muehlenbeck, p. 35) Which is why, for example, he took out an ad in the New York Times for the novel The Ugly American. Because the message in that book was that if all the USA had to offer in the Third World was anti-communism, we might as well fold up our tables and go home. (New York Times, article by Michael Meyer, 6/10/09)
By 1957 and his great anti-colonial Algeria speech, these declarations eventually made him the Democrats’ alternative foreign policy leader. Because he was opposed to John Foster Dulles’ view of the world as a Manichean good vs. evil, USSR vs USA constant confrontation. (John T. Shaw, JFK in the Senate, p. 110) But before that, Senator Kennedy specifically criticized the Eisenhower/Dulles American effort to back France in its futile effort to hold onto its empire in Indochina. (Mahoney, p. 16). He even addressed a letter to Foster Dulles, asking him what his goal was in backing the French effort there. (Click here for James Norwood’s overview of Kennedy’s views about this https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/edmund-gullion-jfk-and-the-shaping-of-a-foreign-policy-in-vietnam)
II
In what I think are meant to be backgrounders for their questionable portrayal, the film brings up the Bay of Pigs episode and the death of Patrice Lumumba in Congo. First, as far as Congo goes, Kennedy was going to support Lumumba, and the CIA knew that. There is evidence that the Agency sped up its assassination plots in order to get rid of Lumumba before the inauguration of Kennedy. (John Morton Blum, Years of Discord, pp. 23-24) Kennedy was not alerted to Lumumba’s death until almost a month later. There is a famous picture of his reaction to this belated knowledge, which reveals the pain he felt at that moment.
As per the Bay of Pigs invasion, anyone who knows anything about that subject, which apparently Curtis and Knappenberger do not, understands that this was a CIA operation. It began under Eisenhower and was pushed on the new president. Kennedy had no inherent inclination to go through with it. When Arthur Schlesinger asked him what he thought about the project, JFK replied that he thought about it as little as possible. CIA Director Allen Dulles also admitted this when he said that, with Kennedy, the project was a kind of an orphan child that he had no real attachment to. (Trumbull Higgins, The Perfect Failure, pp. 102-03) JFK ended up passing on the decision to a meeting of his advisors. There were about 20 people present, and 19 voted for it. (Robert McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 25-26)
When the operation was failing, Kennedy refused to send in American Marines and Naval forces, even though Admiral Arleigh Burke strongly pushed escalation with direct American involvement on him. (David Talbot, Brothers, p. 47). It later turned out that the proponents of the operation—Allen Dulles and Dick Bissell--were banking on him acceding to this all along, because they knew the operation as planned would fail. (ibid).
We know that Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower would have done what Burke requested. (Arthur Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 288; New York Times, story by Thomas Ronan, 10/14/65). And that is an important historical distinction to make in regards to the subject at hand. Curtis and Knappenberger do not come close to making it. They also leave out the fact that Kennedy terminated the top level of the CIA—Dulles, Bissell and Deputy Director Charles Cabell—when he discovered their treachery.
Another parallel issue that Curtis and Knappenberger leave out is Kennedy’s decision on Laos. This was a country that Eisenhower advised Kennedy he should take great interest in, because it was the key to all of Southeast Asia. The president told Kennedy that if the communists took Laos, they would bring “unbelievable pressure” on Cambodia, Thailand and South Vietnam. He went so far as to say that Laos was so crucial that the USA should be willing “as a last desperate hope, to intervene unilaterally.” Further, the General said that America should not permit the communists any role in a new Laotian coalition. (Schlesinger, p. 163)
Kennedy did not heed this advice. He simply did not think that Laos was worth turning into a “pro-western redoubt.” He thought that was a bit exaggerated for a small land-locked country that had only been independent for 12 years. Kennedy wanted to achieve the neutralist solution that Eisenhower had vetoed six months previously. (Schlesinger, p. 329-30). He added that he did not think that America should fight for a people who would not fight for themselves. Which, as we shall see, is another parallel with his view of Vietnam. Kennedy was opposed on this by the Pentagon, which wanted to pour in 60,000 ground troops, air assaults and, if needed, atomic weapons. (ibid, p. 332)
Kennedy decided to forcefully make Moscow understand that he wanted a neutralist solution by bluffing on military intervention. He sailed the Seventh Fleet into the South China Sea and moved 500 Marines into Thailand. After consulting with SEATO, he got pledges from England and India to support a ceasefire. This brought Moscow around, and a neutralist solution was now agreed to with a conference later in Geneva to map out its details.
I could not find any reference to this important precedent in this over six-hour series.
III
Let us now go to the actual depiction of the Kennedy years in Vietnam. There is little discussion of the conferences centering on the first major decision in the Kennedy White House on the subject. These were the November 1961 meetings that resulted in the issuance of NSAM 111. That order stated that America would allow for more advisors, air lift and equipment-- but there would be no combat troops entered into the conflict. During these meetings, Robert Kennedy made it clear to the president’s all too hawkish advisors, e.g., Walt Rostow and McGeorge Bundy, that there would be no American combat troops in Vietnam. (David Kaiser, American Tragedy, p. 113, p. 116).
As historian David Kaiser notes, the constant barrage from those asking for intervention based on a need to save South Vietnam from communism, “had not moved the president at all.” Kennedy was fundamentally opposed to direct involvement because the basis of it would not be clear, since, unlike in Korea, Vietnam was a guerrilla war with Saigon fighting against the Viet Cong. Therefore, the nature of the conflict was less flagrant and more obscure. Consequently, direct American intervention invited both domestic criticism, as well as from nations abroad. Kennedy then noted that prior to the present, millions had been spent by the French and the Eisenhower administration “for years and with no success.” (Kaiser, p. 116)
There is no way to understand what Kennedy did in the next two years if these discussions are not elucidated. And they are not. The program then tries to thwart the import of Kennedy’s opposition by using one of the most desperate, insulting arguments I have ever heard: helicopter pilots were the equivalent of combat troops. Which is just silly. Units of combat troops are made up of squads, platoons, companies, battalions etc. One can also divide them around functions, like infantry, armor and artillery. They are designed to either protect territory or to conquer and hold enemy territory on the ground. The first American combat troops arrived in the form of the 3rd Marine Division in Da Nang on March 8, 1965, 14 months after Kennedy’s assassination.
This is all bad enough, but the program also leaves out the looming figure of John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith was sent to Saigon after NSAM 111 was issued because Kennedy wanted to get a report that countered what people like Rostow and the Pentagon were saying. He knew that his former Harvard tutor would do just that—which he did. (John Newman, JFK and Vietnam, second edition, pp. 234-35)
Galbraith was in town in April, and Kennedy directed him to meet with McNamara. He designated McNamara because, after the November conferences over NSAM 111, Kennedy called a meeting. He arrived late and waited for the small talk to die down. He then began with this: “When policy is decided on, people on the spot must support it or get out.” He then asked who would be implementing his policy for Vietnam. McNamara said it would be him and General Lyman Lemnitzer. Since everyone knew Lemnitzer would be leaving shortly, it would be McNamara. (Newman, p. 146) This is why Kennedy sent Galbraith to meet with him. Galbraith wrote to Kennedy that he was sure McNamara got the message. In that memo, Galbraith states that America should resist any temptation to use combat troops in Vietnam. (Virtual JFK, by James Blight, p. 370) McNamara’s Deputy Roswell Gilpatric later stated that McNamara had told him that the withdrawal program was something Kennedy wanted him to devise in order “to unwind this whole thing.” (ibid, p. 371)
Less than one month later, at the 5th SECDEF Conference on Vietnam, McNamara ended the meeting and waited for the door to shut. He then addressed the commanding general in Vietnam, Paul Harkins, and his assistant, George Allen. He told them it was not the job of America to fight the war for Saigon. America’s job should be to develop the capability of South Vietnam to do so. He then asked Harkins when that capability could be attained. Harkins said they had not thought yet about a way to dismantle the American advisory structure. McNamara now gave the order to do just that. (Newman, p. 264)
Because he was so surprised, Harkins dragged his feet about McNamara’s order. But at the May 1963 SECDEF meeting, McNamara collected the withdrawal schedules from members of the CIA, Defense Department and State assembled at the meeting in Hawaii. After he collected them, he looked up and said the schedules were too slow. (Blight, pp. 105-06)
At this point, McNamara began to talk about a termination date for all American advisors to be out of Vietnam by 1965. That decision was then discussed in meetings at the White House in October of 1963, and then certified by the Taylor/McNamara Report and the approval of NSAM 263 on October 11, 1963. That memorandum ordered the first batch of 1,000 advisors to be out by the end of 1963. Kennedy had sent General Max Taylor and McNamara to Vietnam and wanted them to write a report that would formalize a schedule of withdrawal. (Blight, p. 295, p. 302) They did, and there is evidence the report was actually written in Washington and delivered to those two men. (Howard Jones, Death of a Generation, p. 370) Upon their return to the White House, William Sullivan tried to take out the withdrawal part of that report. Kennedy had it placed back inside. (Newman, p. 411)
The above is all historical fact. Watch the film’s Part One and tell me how much of this crucial information is in those opening 72 minutes.
IV
The capper for the first section was predictable. The film tries to somehow blame Kennedy for both the overthrow of the Nhus—Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu--and their deaths. As I have stated on more than one occasion, there are two excellent descriptions of the cause of the overthrow and the ultimate demise of the Nhus. The sending of the so-called ‘coup cable’ is dealt with in objective detail in John Newman’s JFK and Vietnam. How the brothers met their bloody end is rendered honestly in JFK and the Unspeakable.
Certain persons in the State Department, like Joseph Mendenhall, who had served as Political Counsel at the American Embassy in Saigon, understood that by the summer of 1962, the war was not going well. He asked the rhetorical question, “Why are we losing?” He blamed it on the Nhu brothers, who would not change their dictatorial rule no matter what pressure was brought. His rhetorical solution was that they had to get rid of Diem, and Mr. and Mrs. Nhu. (Newman, p. 298)
This foreboding was exacerbated by the Buddhist crisis, which started in the city of Hue in early May of 1963. What began as a local demonstration against religious discrimination was so mishandled by Nhu, chief of security forces, that it turned into a national crisis. And it gradually spread south into Saigon. Madame Nhu smeared it as being communist inspired. And as the public immolations of monks began, she referred to them as “barbecues”, adding that she would supply the gasoline for the next one. (Newman, p. 343) It was this crumbling and chaos that gave the doubters in the State Department the opening for their scheme to rid themselves of Diem and Nhu.
The cabal consisted of Averill Harriman, Roger Hilsman and Michael Forrestal. They waited for a late August ’63 weekend when the major players were out of the DC area—JFK, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary McNamara, his deputy Roswell Gilpatric, and CIA Director John McCone. Cables began coming in from the new Saigon ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the temporary CIA station leader, Lucien Conein, who was in contact with Diem’s opponents in the military. (Newman, p. 354) The generals said that if Washington agreed, they would willingly participate in an overthrow of Diem. Hilsman then prepared a memo instructing Lodge to request Diem to strip Nhu of his powers, and if he did not, then we could no longer support him. If the government broke down, Lodge should tell the generals that we would support them in the interim.
When Kennedy was contacted in Hyannis Port, he asked why this could not wait until Monday. Forrestal said it was because Harriman and Hilsman wanted to meet the problem right then and there. The president then asked that the cable be cleared by all the principals, especially John McCone. (Newman, p. 355). To make a long story short, Forrestal lied to Kennedy about McCone approving the cable, and Lodge did not go to Diem in advance; he went directly to the generals. When Kennedy got back from Hyannis Port, he was enraged, and Forrestal offered to resign. Kennedy said, “You’re not worth firing. You owe me something, so you stick around.” (Newman, p. 361)
V
As Lodge said in a TV interview, when Kennedy discovered the subterfuge, he called the ambassador and asked him to cancel the cable, which he says he did. But the cat was out of the bag. As the Buddhist crisis got worse, the Nhus realized their isolation and began tentative, indirect contacts with Hanoi; but the north demanded that Diem ask the Americans to depart. (James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 191)
Lodge publicized these contacts in the press, knowing this made the generals even more suspect about Diem. Lodge understood that once he did this, it would, in all probability, prompt a coup attempt. Kennedy tried to get Lodge to talk to Diem, but that did not work. Hilsman encouraged Lodge to continue his policy of silence with Saigon’s leader. (Douglass, p. 192) When Kennedy learned that the CIA had cut off the Commodity Import Program to Saigon without informing him, he shook his head and said, “My God, do you know what you have done?” (Ibid)
Realizing he was losing control and that Lodge was the wrong man for the job, Kennedy decided that he would try to get Diem out himself, since the writing was on the wall for his inevitable fall. He tried doing this by sending his friend Torby Macdonald to Saigon to plead with him to leave. Diem would not. (Douglass, p. 211).
The overthrow began on November 1, 1963. Diem and Nhu made a bad mistake by consulting with Lodge as it began and continuing to do so, thus relaying locations as they tried to escape. Lodge was in close communications with Conein, who was, in large part, supervising the generals. Thus, the Nhu brothers’ attempts to escape were playing right into the coup plotters’ hands. (Douglass, pp. 208-10)
When they learned of the church where they were, General Minh sent a team of five in a personnel carrier to pick them up. The brothers thought that Lodge had arranged an escort to the airport to provide them safe passage out of Saigon. Not suspecting what was planned, they entered the carrier and both were shot in the nape of the neck. Nhu was also shot in the chest and stabbed many times. (Douglass, p. 210) Lodge wrote out the report two days after the killings. He likely got the details from Conein.
When Kennedy got the news, he recalled Lodge to Washington for the purpose of firing him. (Ibid, p. 375) The Dallas assassination intervened, and Lyndon Johnson kept him as ambassador. Which tells us something about what was going to occur under LBJ. As we shall see, the series is about as poor on that subject as it is on Kennedy.
