Vietnam War

==Kennedy's escalation, 1961–1963==
{{Main|War in Vietnam (1959–1963)|Strategic Hamlet Program}}
{{See also|Phạm Ngọc Thảo}}
[[File:The President's News Conference, 23 March 1961.jpg|thumb|President Kennedy's news conference of 23 March 1961]]

In the [[1960 U.S. presidential election]], Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America "loomed larger than Asia on his sights."<ref name=Karnow/>{{Rp|264}} In April 1961, Kennedy approved the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]], which ended in failure. In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]] when they [[Vienna summit|met in Vienna]] to discuss key U.S.–Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] (16–28 October 1962) played out on television worldwide. It was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale [[nuclear war]], and the U.S. raised the readiness level of [[Strategic Air Command]] (SAC) forces to [[DEFCON]] 2.

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in South Korea, and Kennedy faced four crisis situations: the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion that he had approved on 4 April,<ref>{{Cite web |date=12 May 2015 |title=It's Time to Stop Saying that JFK Inherited the Bay of Pigs Operation from Ike |url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161188 |publisher=History News Network|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230207045947/https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161188|archive-date=February 7, 2023}}</ref> settlement negotiations between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement in May ("Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers."),<ref name=Karnow/>{{Rp|265}} the construction of the [[Berlin Wall]] in August, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in October. Kennedy believed that yet another failure to gain control and stop communist expansion would irreparably damage U.S. credibility. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of ''[[The New York Times]]'' immediately after his Vienna summit meeting with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040205004638/http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/goldzwig.htm The case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam Presidential Studies Quarterly].</ref><ref>Mann, Robert. ''A Grand Delusion'', Basic Books, 2002.</ref>

Kennedy's policy toward South Vietnam assumed that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that "to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vietnam Task Force |url=http://media.nara.gov/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-4.pdf |title=Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force |date=1969 |publisher=[[Office of the Secretary of Defense]] |location=Washington, DC |pages=1–2 |chapter=IV. B. Evolution of the War 4. Phased Withdrawal of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, 1962–64 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150504231323/http://media.nara.gov/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-4.pdf |archive-date=4 May 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the ARVN. The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi's support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.<ref name=McNamara/>{{Rp|369}}

One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using [[special forces]] for [[counterinsurgency]] warfare in [[Third World]] countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces, such as the [[Special Forces (United States Army)|Green Berets]] would be effective in a "brush fire" war in Vietnam.

[[File:President meets with Secretary of Defense. President Kennedy, Secretary McNamara. White House, Cabinet Room - NARA - 194244.jpg|thumb|President [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] meeting with Secretary of Defense [[Robert McNamara|McNamara]], circa 19 June 1962]]

Kennedy advisors [[Maxwell D. Taylor|Maxwell Taylor]] and [[Walt Rostow]] [[Taylor-Rostow Report|recommended]] that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Stavins |first=Ralph L. |date=22 July 1971 |title=A Special Supplement: Kennedy's Private War |work=The New York Review of Books |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/07/22/a-special-supplement-kennedys-private-war/ |access-date=2 December 2017 |issn=0028-7504|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406045200/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/07/22/a-special-supplement-kennedys-private-war/|archive-date=April 6, 2023}}</ref> Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, [[John Kenneth Galbraith]] warned Kennedy of the "danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Galbraith |first=John Kenneth |title=The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Volume 2 |date=1971 |publisher=Beacon Press |location=Boston |pages=669–671 |chapter=Memorandum to President Kennedy from John Kenneth Galbraith on Vietnam, 4 April 1962 |author-link=John Kenneth Galbraith}}</ref> Eisenhower put 900 advisors in Vietnam, and by November 1963, Kennedy had put 16,000 American military personnel in Vietnam.<ref name=Hastings/>{{Rp|131}}

The [[Strategic Hamlet Program]] was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.–South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified villages. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from the Viet Cong. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964.<ref name=Tucker/>{{Rp|1070}}

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, and the United States, signed an [[International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos|agreement]] promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.

===Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm===
{{Main|Cable 243|Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm|Buddhist crisis| Krulak Mendenhall mission|McNamara Taylor mission|1963 South Vietnamese coup|Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup}}
{{See also|Role of the United States in the Vietnam War#John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)|1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt|1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing|Huế Phật Đản shootings|Xá Lợi Pagoda raids}}

The inept performance of the ARVN was exemplified by failed actions such as the [[Battle of Ap Bac|Battle of Ấp Bắc]] on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat.<ref name="Sheehan">{{Cite book |last=Sheehan |first=Neil |title=A Bright Shining Lie – John Paul Vann and the American War in Vietnam |date=1989 |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-679-72414-8|url=https://archive.org/details/brightshininglie0000shee_r0g3}}</ref>{{Rp|201–206}} During the battle the South Vietnamese had lost 83 soldiers and 5 US war helicopters serving to ferry ARVN troops that had been shot down by Vietcong forces, while the Vietcong forces had lost only 18 soldiers. The ARVN forces were led by Diệm's most trusted general, [[Huỳnh Văn Cao]], commander of the [[IV Corps (South Vietnam)|IV Corps]]. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coup attempts; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As [[Robert F. Kennedy]] noted, "Diệm wouldn't make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with{{Nbsp}}..."<ref>Live interview by [[John Bartlow Martin]]. ''Was Kennedy Planning to Pull out of Vietnam?'' New York City. John F. Kennedy Library, 1964, Tape V, Reel 1.</ref> Historian James Gibson summed up the situation:

{{Blockquote|Strategic hamlets had failed{{Nbsp}}... The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a 'regime' in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gibson |first=James |date=1986 |title=The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam |page=[https://archive.org/details/perfectwartechno0000gibs/page/88 88] |publisher=The Atlantic Monthly Press |url=https://archive.org/details/perfectwartechno0000gibs |url-access=registration}}</ref>}}

Discontent with Diệm's policies exploded in May 1963, following the [[Huế Phật Đản shootings]] of nine unarmed Buddhists protesting against the ban on displaying the [[Buddhist flag]] on [[Vesak]], the Buddha's birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents over the Buddhist majority. Diệm's elder brother [[Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục|Ngô Đình Thục]] was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc's anniversary celebrations occurred shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Catholic paramilitaries demolishing Buddhist pagodas throughout Diệm's rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces|ARVN Special Forces]] of Colonel [[Lê Quang Tung]], loyal to Diệm's younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, [[Xá Lợi Pagoda raids|raided pagodas]] across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.
[[File:Arvncapture.jpg|thumb|upright|ARVN forces capture a Viet Cong]]

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a [[regime change]] during the middle of 1963. The [[United States Department of State]] wanted to encourage a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm's younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces, and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family's rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in [[Cable 243]].

The CIA contacted generals planning to remove Diệm and told them that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When Kennedy was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that he "rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face."<ref name=Karnow/>{{Rp|326}} Kennedy had not anticipated Diệm's murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, [[Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.|Henry Cabot Lodge]], invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that "the prospects now are for a shorter war".<ref name=Karnow/>{{Rp|327}} Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for "a fine job".<ref>{{Cite book |title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963 |chapter=304. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam—Washington, November 6, 1963—7:50 p.m. |chapter-url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d304 |via=Office of the Historian|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404230151/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d304|archive-date=April 4, 2023}}</ref>

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.<ref name=McNamara/>{{Rp|328}}

U.S. military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency.{{Sfn|Demma|1989}} The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification – which in this case was defined as countering the growing threat of insurgency<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 2015 |title=Counterinsurgency in Vietnam: Lessons for Today |url=https://www.afsa.org/counterinsurgency-vietnam-lessons-today |website=The Foreign Service Journal|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407114858/https://afsa.org/counterinsurgency-vietnam-lessons-today|archive-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Pacification |url=http://www.vietnamgear.com/dictionary/pacification.aspx |website=Vietnam War Dictionary|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405065336/http://www.vietnamgear.com/dictionary.aspx?s=pacification|archive-date=April 5, 2023}}</ref> – and [[Hearts and Minds (Vietnam War)|"winning over the hearts and minds"]] of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blaufarb |first=Douglas S. |title=The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present |date=1977 |publisher=Free Press |isbn=978-0-02-903700-3 |page=119}}</ref> General [[Paul D. Harkins|Paul Harkins]], the [[COMUSMACV|commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam]], confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.<ref name=Herring/>{{Rp|103}} The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that "the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schandler |first=Herbert Y. |url=https://archive.org/details/americainvietnam0000scha |title=America in Vietnam: The War That Couldn't Be Won |date=2009 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-6697-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americainvietnam0000scha/page/36 36] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Paramilitary officers from the CIA's [[Special Activities Division]] trained and led [[Hmong people|Hmong]] tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Southworth |first1=Samuel |url=https://archive.org/details/usspecialforcesg0000sout |title=U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America's Special Operations Units: the World's Most Elite Fighting Force |last2=Tanner |first2=Stephen |date=2002 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=978-0-306-81165-4 |url-access=registration}}</ref> The CIA also ran the [[Phoenix Program]] and participated in [[Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group]] (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Warner |first=Roger |title=Shooting at the Moon The story of America's clandestine war in Laos |date=1996 |publisher=Steerforth Press |isbn=978-1-883642-36-5}}</ref>