Turning Point: The Vietnam War, Part 4
Part 4 of Turning Point begins with the Nixon Administration. It will end with the huge controversy over the release of the Pentagon Papers. As we shall see, the program is not inclusive or completely accurate about the latter issue.
As Defense Secretary Robert McNamara tried to tell President Johnson, Rolling Thunder—the bombing campaign over Vietnam—was not working. But Johnson thought it could be used as a bargaining chip to begin talks with Hanoi. During the 1968 campaign, GOP candidate Richard Nixon said that he would find an honorable way to end the war in Indochina--although he was not specific about how he would do it. In October, Nixon had a comfortable lead of about 15 points. Mainly because Vice President Hubert Humphrey was reluctant to separate himself from LBJ on Vietnam, an issue the film does not articulate. But when Johnson announced a bombing halt over the north, the peace talks—which began in May—would gain traction. And, as the film shows, Humphrey began to cut into Nixon’s lead significantly.
To thwart this, the Nixon campaign now set out to start the original October Surprise scheme. This maneuver worked mainly through GOP power broker Anna Chennault. The object was to subvert the cease fire negotiations before one could be announced. The Nixon campaign, through intelligence passed to it from Henry Kissinger, conveyed to the government of Saigon that if they held out, they would get better terms from Nixon. (The Nation, story by Greg Grandin, 11/02/16)
It is important to recall that, by this point, there were 500,000 combat troops in Vietnam, over a million Vietnamese had been killed, and about 30,000 Americans had died. (Robert Parry, Consortium News, 3/3/12; 1/18/13). The original tip about the Chennault sabotage came into the White House from a Wall Street financier to National Security Advisor Walt Rostow. At this same time, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker relayed the message that Saigon’s President Thieu was now balking at a cease-fire. On November 2, 1968, Thieu made a highly publicized speech boycotting his government from the peace talks.
Smelling a rat, Johnson ordered FBI, CIA, and NSA investigations. The inquiry discovered the roles of Chennault and Washington’s Saigon ambassador Bui Diem, who acted as a middleman. The president complained about it to GOP Senator Everett Dirksen: “They oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.” On a phone call, Johnson confronted Nixon and threatened to go public. Nixon lied to him about it.
But Beverly Deepe, from the Saigon office of the Christian Science Monitor, had heard of the subterfuge through local sources. She handed her story to her editor, Saville Davis, in Washington. Ambassador Bui Diem denied it all, and after a conference with his top advisors, Johnson decided not to confirm the story for Davis—even though the president knew it was true. (ibid, Parry) Thus Nixon’s subterfuge remained hidden. And he lied about it until the end. In his interviews with David Frost, he said 1.) He did nothing to undercut Johnson’s negotiations, and 2.) He did not authorize Chennault’s attempts at subterfuge.
I have gone into more detail about this than the film does, but Turning Point misses the true denouement to Nixon’s interference. Many MSM writers have attributed the origins of Nixon’s Plumbers Unit, and therefore Watergate, to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg. Robert Parry discovered that such was not really the case. The new president was told by J. Edgar Hoover about Johnson’s surveillance of the Chennault affair. As revealed on the Watergate tapes, Nixon thought Johnson and Walt Rostow had stored their evidence on his subversion at the Brookings Institute. Nixon instructed Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman to break into Brookings and even advised him to use someone like E. Howard Hunt to do so.
Nixon was wrong about the location. Walt Rostow sealed the materials and sent them to the LBJ Library. In an accompanying note, he labeled the papers as Top Secret, not to be opened until June of 2023. We are lucky that the late Bob Parry found out about them much earlier. (ibid)
II
In addition to the above, it is important to know that, as historian Jeffrey Kimball wrote, Nixon knew about the Wise Men meeting I discussed in Part 3. In March of 1968, he told three of his speechwriters:
I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to win the war. But we can’t say that, of course. In fact, we have to seem to say the opposite, just to keep some degree of bargaining leverage. (Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, p. 52)
In other words, before he took office, Nixon knew that the war could not be won by Saigon. But he decided to continue the conflict for political reasons. It is important to recall that Nixon was instrumental in getting America directly involved in Vietnam, and he was the first politician to ever recommend the use of American combat troops. This was during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. At that time, he also pushed for the use of atomic weapons. (John Prados, Operation Vulture, Chapter 9, JFK Revisited, by James DiEugenio, p. 131). Anyone who knows anything about Nixon understands that he was tutored in foreign policy by John Foster Dulles. It was Dulles who so memorably said after the collapse of the French empire, “We have a clean slate there now, without a taint of colonialism. Dien Bien Phu was a blessing in disguise.” (William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History, p. 139)
As I noted earlier, one of the many problems with the series is that it skimps over the origins of the American involvement in the fifties. Because of that, one cannot really understand Nixon’s near schizophrenic mania about the war. And if you do not delineate his role at the start, it is not possible to explain the fruity extremes he went to-- knowing Saigon could not win.
For example, Nixon ended up dropping more bomb tonnage over Indochina than Johnson did. This is because he greatly expanded the air war over Laos and Cambodia. (Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, p. 21; William Shawcross, Sideshow, pp. 70-71) Again, in my view, the series seriously underplays this aspect; it is a significant expansion from what Johnson did. And Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia the first week he was in office. (Shawcross, p. 91) It began in March of 1969 and continued for 14 months, entailing 3,630 B-52 sorties. This campaign had horrific political effects. It began to undermine the neutralist government of Prince Sihanouk and allowed the beginning of the growth of the Khmer Rouge. To protect himself, Sihanouk appointed General Lon Nol as prime minister. Lon Nol then deposed Sihanouk, and he allowed Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to supplement the air war with a land invasion of Cambodia—by American and ARVN troops-- in the spring of 1970. For all intents and purposes, this was the beginning of the end of Cambodia.
In 1971, Nixon authorized an invasion of Laos by the ARVN. By most objective accounts, this ended in failure; so much so that Nixon later relieved General Creighton Abrams, who supervised American support of the operation. Even though Operation Lam Son 719 was a failure, the bombing did not stop. This bombing was even more pointless in Laos, since that was even a more backward country than Vietnam or Cambodia. (Blum, p. 160) As one commentator noted, Laos was a fledgling society the USA was trying to make extinct, to strangle in its crib, so to speak. They were so senselessly desperate in this aim, they created phony invasions from North Vietnam, not once but twice—all in order to boost military aid to a country that was landlocked and poor. (Blum, p. 159) But with the announcement of a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1973, another coalition government was announced. It would last until 1975. Up until then, due to the bombing and the incursion, “Laos had become a land of nomads without villages, without farms, a generation of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, many more maimed.” It might not have been as bad as Cambodia, or what was to happen in Cambodia, but it was pretty much inexcusable. Eisenhower was simply wrong when he told Kennedy that Laos was worth going to the mat over. Khrushchev also wondered why Washington even bothered so much about the country, since it bored him. (Blum p. 159). But Nixon thought it was worth invading.
III
The expansion of the war through the invasions—Nixon called them incursions—into Cambodia and Laos brought the peace protests to a pinnacle of scope and fury. And these created tragedy at Kent State and Jackson State. At Kent State, four were killed and nine wounded by the National Guard. Chic Canfora, one of the program’s commentators, was at Kent State with her brother—who was wounded—and she does a helpful commentary on how it happened. She states in the film that the ROTC building, which was set on fire, had been scheduled to be taken down already. But further, a presidential commission concluded that the blaze was not started by Kent State students. (Commission on Campus Unrest, p. 251)
There can be little doubt that Nixon and Governor James Rhodes despised the demonstrators and egged on the reaction to them. On the day the campus protests began, May 1, 1970, Nixon called the students bums who were burning up books and blowing up campuses. And he contrasted them with the bravery of the troops in the field abroad. (New York Times, May 2, 1970, story by Juan de Onis) Reporter Bob Woodward later stated that a year later, Nixon compared the Kent State demonstrators to the prison rioters at Attica and said Kent State might have been beneficial to his administration. On the tape, Woodward said Nixon tells Bob Haldeman, “You know what stops them? Stops them? Kill a few. Remember Kent State….” (WCBE Radio, Ohio Public Radio, May 6, 2019)
The day before the shooting, Rhodes held a press conference in the town of Kent, and he called the demonstrators un-American revolutionaries who were trying to destroy higher education in Ohio. He said he would use law enforcement “to drive them out of Kent. We are going to eradicate the problem.” Rhodes compared the students to Hitler’s paramilitary Brownshirts who helped bring him to power. (Cleveland.com, May 3, 2020, story by Thomas Suddes; Kent State/May 4, edited by Scott Bills, p. 13)
At Jackson State in Mississippi, two students were killed and 12 wounded. The shootings were by the Mississippi Highway and Safety Patrol and the Jackson police force. As more than one commentator has stated, unlike Kent State, there was an element of racism in this shooting. (Nancy Bristow, The Nation, May 4, 2020) All told, the demonstrations against the Cambodian attack generated protests at more than 700 college campuses. More than 200 Foreign Service employees issued a petition against the expansion of the war. Four of National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s aides registered their disagreement with their resignations. (Stone and Kuznick, p. 370)
In his half-mad pursuit of a war he knew could not be won, Nixon had brought forth submerged demonic forces amid the American populace. He was intent on polarizing the country over Vietnam. In his April 30, 1970 speech revealing the Cambodian action, he said that in the USA ”‘great universities are being systematically destroyed.” Previously, he had appealed to what he called the great Silent Majority that could not abide by America looking “like a pitiful helpless giant” in Vietnam, as opposed to the bums who wanted to burn books and try to impose their will on the country by demonstrations in the streets. RMN was consciously pitting idealistic students against lunchpail factory workers and trying to split the Democratic party on cultural grounds. With Malcolm, both Kennedys and King gone, it worked.
IV
Even this does not show just how unhinged Nixon was on Vietnam and how effective and heroic the anti-war movement was. In 1969, Nixon designed an above top-secret plan code-named Operation Duck Hook. It included direct American infantry attacks on the north, air strikes on bridges along the Chinese border, and the mining of three seaports. (Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam War Files, p. 101. Other sources say that it included saturation bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong and possible use of atomic weapons--see Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, pp. 362-64) Nixon held it so close to his vest that even his Defense Secretary, Melvin Laird, was ignorant of it. The president called it off when he saw the immense scope and intensity of the October/November Moratorium. (ibid, Kimball, p. 105; Stone and Kuznick, p. 362) It was then that he decided to give his Silent Majority speech, facing off the demonstrators against his perceived constituency.
I could not detect Duck Hook in this series.
At the Nixon Library in 2014, there was discovered—or some say rediscovered-- evidence that Nixon and Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman intervened in the court-martial of Lt. William Calley over the My Lai Massacre. (CBS News, March 23, 2014, story by Evie Salomon) The notes made by Haldeman indicate there was a task force for My Lai, and they should employ dirty tricks that did not go to a high level. They should also use the atrocity at Hue for countering purposes, “discredit one witness”, “use a senator or two”, and to “keep working on the problem.” According to author Trent Angers, Nixon and Haldeman were going to target Hugh Thompson and Larry Colburn, who actively tried to halt the massacre. In fact, two congressmen working with Nixon managed to seal Thompson’s testimony, hurting the cases against others who were accused. When Calley was convicted, almost immediately, Nixon had his prison sentence turned into house arrest. (NY Times, 4/2/71, story by Linda Charlton) He was paroled after a bit more than three years.
I mentioned in the last section that the film does an above-average job on the My Lai Massacre through Ron Haeberle, the military photographer. But I could not detect any examination of Nixon’s role in the Calley trial and aftermath.
V
As a result of My Lai and the following cover-up, people like Jane Fonda, Mark Lane and Vietnam veteran Donald Duncan originally helped organize a public tribunal on other atrocities that had taken place in Vietnam. Eventually, this went on for three days in Detroit, January 31-February 2, 1971. It was called the Winter Soldier Investigation. The film briefly shows some of the hearings but does not go into Nixon’s reaction to them, which was to try to discredit the proceedings. (Washington Post, 12/17/17, story by Michael Dobbs) Nixon and Haldeman tried to smear the organizers as being “Kennedy supporters.” They also tried to mobilize veterans of Vietnam who were still for the war against the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. (Andrew Hunt, The Turning, p. 73, p. 84) Nixon’s ploys worked to a degree. The film made from the hearings was not successful. Only when it was re-released in 2005 did it meet with acclaim. (Click here for a segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9KI0BUzr70)
John Kerry became a national figure at this time when he began speaking out against the futility of the Vietnam War. His testimony before the Fulbright Committee is not included. In fact, I did not see any of those hearings on the war in the series. Yet these lasted until 1971. They were well reported on, some were even broadcast, and they were effective in ultimately cutting off funds for the conflict. Ken Hughes, one of the interview subjects, understands all this, as he wrote about it in his book, Fatal Politics.
This segment ends with the leakage and publication of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. There have been several books written about that whole, long, celebrated episode, and how it rocked the MSM and Washington. I have read up on it, and interviewed some of the principals involved, e.g., the late Daniel Ellsberg, and attorney James Goodale of the New York Times. Some background is in order.
Ellsberg was working at the Rand Corporation offices in Santa Monica when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara commissioned a study on the entire expanse of the Vietnam War, from its beginnings to the end of the Johnson administration. In other words, it did not include what Nixon had done in that regard. But Nixon decided to take action due to the (poor) advice of two people: Henry Kissinger and Attorney General John Mitchell. (Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous, p. 221; James Goodale, Fighting for the Press, p. 73).
When the Times and then the Washington Post published the classified material, a legal battle broke out on three fronts. One was in court in Washington to stop publication. The administration lost 6-3 on a decision that went up to the Supreme Court. They then tried to convict Ellsberg and his friend Anthony Russo in California. That case was dismissed when the judge found out that, among other things, the White House had burglarized the offices of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. (Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, pp. 444-49) Third, the White House opened grand jury proceedings in Massachusetts against Beacon Press for their efforts to publish a more complete version of the Pentagon Papers than the Times did. That did not succeed because Beacon’s version was based on the papers given to Senator Mike Gravel, and he recited them into the congressional record and then submitted the rest. One should add that it was that version of the papers which included a subject called Phased Withdrawal 1962-64. For whatever reason, the Times version did not.
Nixon had begun the so-called Plumbers Unit over his fear of being caught for his sabotage of the 1968 election. He wanted a break-in at the Brookings Institution, where he (mistakenly) thought those papers were. Both acts, the subterfuge and the break-in, were illegal. But as the reader can see from the above, that was just the beginning of a record of perfidy on Indochina that is both incredulous and horrifying. This film is too kind to the criminal.
