Fire in the Lake (79 page)

  
5
. Robert Komer. Press conference.

  
6
. William C. Westmoreland,
Report on the War in Vietnam,
p. 137.

  
7
. Thomas Whiteside, “Defoliation,” p. 32, 38.

  
8
.
Newsweek,
27 March 1967.

  
9
. Frances FitzGerald, “The Tragedy of Saigon.” This article is a description of the condition of Saigon in late 1966 and an argument concerning the uses of American aid in Vietnam. The city budget of Saigon for 1966 was equivalent to that of Lynchburg, Va., or Allentown, Pa.

10
. William R. Corson,
The Betrayal,
p. 173.

11
. David Halberstam, “Return to Vietnam,” p. 53.

12
. Ibid.

13
. Pham Ngoc Nguyen, “House for Rent,” in
Between Two Fires,
ed. Ly Qui Chung, p. 70.

14
.
New York Times,
26 November 1967.

15
. R. W. Apple, “Vietnam: The Signs of a Stalemate.” The irony was that though Apple used the story to illustrate the perfidy of the Vietnamese officer corps, certain analysts in Saigon might well nave assumed that the adviser told it to illustrate his success at getting a unit of the Twenty-fifth Division out of its base at night.

16
. Alec Woodside, “Some Southern Vietnamese Writers Look at the War,” pp. 54–55.

17
. Robert Jay Lifton, the Yale psychologist and social historian, also mentions this phenomenon, which he labels “counterfeit nurturance,” in his paper, “The Circles of Deception — Notes on Vietnam.”

18
. Woodside, “Writers Look at the War,” p. 54.

13: Prospero

  
1
. In 1966 the mission, after a trial run, decided to increase the numbers of IVS workers severalfold.

  
2
. Don Luce and John Sommer,
Viet Nam: The Unheard Voices,
p. 316.

  
3
. William Pfaff, “A Vietnam Journal,” p. 20.

  
4
. The Advanced Research Projects Association (ARPA) was the cover-all name for Defense Department research projects based in Vietnam.

  
5
. Simulmatics first achieved prominence by doing the polling and voter analysis for the John F. Kennedy campaign in i960. The company was dissolved in 1968 as a result of overdependence on, and difficulties with, the Defense Department.

  
6
. Richard M. Pfeffer, ed.,
No More Vietnams?,
p. 146.

  
7
. “The Michigan Winter Soldier Investigation,”
Harvard Crimson,
14 May 1971. Testimony from Scott Camile, 24, Sergeant (E-5), First Battalion, Eleventh Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. (In Vietnam, August 1966 to September 1967.)
    “The way that we distinguished between civilians and VC, VC had weapons and civilians didn't and anybody that was dead was considered a VC. If you killed someone they said, ‘How do you know he's a VC?’ and the general reply would be, ‘He's dead,’ and that was sufficient.”

  
8
. John T. McAlister, Jr., “America in Vietnam,” p. 10.

  
9
. In 1967–1968 the journalist, Harvey Meyerson, documented this process in detail during his several months' stay in Vinh Long province (Harvey Meyerson,
Vinh Long
). The syndrome was by then well established in history. In 1962 Colonel John Paul Vann, the Seventh Division adviser in My Tho, was known to American reporters to be the only adviser who reported on the deterioration of the GVN. Vann had to leave the Army as a result.

10
. In a televised interview some of the prisoners said that many of them had become partially paralyzed by the confinement, that they had lung diseases from the lime the guards flung down at them, and that they were given so little water that occasionally they were forced to drink their own urine. Those prisoners interviewed were Buddhist students. The American official who later briefed the press in Saigon said that the “bulk of the inmates are either hard-core Communist defenders or they are serious professional criminals” and that he “thought” the prisoners were “reasonably well-treated and that they looked in reasonably good health.” (
New York Times,
17 July 1970.)

11
.
New York Times,
18 July 1970.

12
. Ambassador Bunker also played an important role in the affair of Tran Ngoc Chau in the spring of 1970. President Thieu arrested and imprisoned Deputy Chau on charges of cooperating with the Communists. Though these charges were false and Chau had important friends in the U.S. mission, Bunker washed his hands of the matter and allowed Thieu to imprison Chau.

13
.
The Vietnam Hearings,
pp. 182–183.

14
. The argument was often made by those people far from power, but the logic existed — and sometimes just below consciousness — for those people whose job it was to make the distinction. When asked in 1968 why he believed the United States could win the war in Vietnam, one high CIA official not directly concerned with the war gave a long speech about the virtues of democracy and the vices of Communism — a moral argument to a power-political question.

15
.
Boston Globe,
July 1970.

16
. “Michigan Winter Soldier Investigation,” p. 7. Testimony of Steve Pitkin, 20, SP/4, “C” Company, 2/239, Ninth Infantry Division. (In Vietnam from May 1969 to July 1969.)
    The training that they gave us, the infantry, really amounted to nothing but familiarization with the small-arms weapons and the explosives you would use once you got over there. We attacked a mock Vietnamese village in the snow at Fort Dix. An interesting point: a lot of times when we were put on line to attack a point of something, you were told not to fire until your left foot hit the ground. I remember asking a drill sergeant, “Do they really do this in Nam?” “Yeah, you know.”
    When I got to Nam, it was like black had turned to white because I was totally unprepared. I was put into a recon unit operating in the Mekong Delta. I hadn't been taught anything about the weather, the terrain. I had been taught a little bit about booby traps, but that's really up to the guy who lays them; they can just be anything. It was just a hit and miss thing. You go over there with that limited amount of training and knowledge of the culture you're up against and you're scared. You're so scared, that you'll shoot at anything.

17
. “Michigan Winter Soldier Investigation,” p. 3. Testimony of Scott Camile.

18
. Ibid., p. 7. Testimony of Steve Pitkin.

19
. Ibid., and Richard Falk et al., letter to the
New York Times,
22 April 1970.

20
.
New York Times,
31 March 1971.

21
. Calley's statement reminds one of the “legalism” of one Marine unit that, as one GI testified, “went through the villages and searched people [and] the women would have all their clothes taken off and the men would use their penises to probe them to make sure they didn't have anything hidden anywhere and this was raping but it was done as searching.” (“Michigan Winter Soldier Investigation,” p. 3. Testimony of Scott Camile.)

22
. McAllister, “America in Vietnam,” p. 12.

23
. Jonathan and Orville Schell, letter to the
New York Times,
26 November 1969.

24
.
New York Times,
7 January 1967.

25
. Douglas Pike, “The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror,” p. 9.

26
. Ibid., pp. 19–20.

27
. Ibid., p. 8.

14: Guerrillas

  
1
. Frantz Fanon,
The Wretched of the Earth,
p. 43.

  
2
. Alec Woodside, “Some Southern Vietnamese Writers Look at the War,” p. 55.

  
3
.
Le Monde (sélection hebdomadaire),
14–20 May 1970, by Jean-Claude Pomonti.

  
4
. Ibid.

  
5
. Woodside, “Writers Look at the War,” p. 55.

  
6
.
New York Times,
10 October 1967.

  
7
. Ibid.

15: The Tet Offensive

  
1
.
Newsweek,
12 February 1968.

  
2
. William C. Westmoreland,
Report on the War in Vietnam,
pp. 157–164.

  
3
.
Newsweek,
12 February 1968.

  
4
. All the information on troop movements, on Giap's plan, and on Westmoreland's own estimates come from Westmoreland's
Report.

  
5
. Westmoreland,
Report,
p. 160.

  
6
.
New York Times,
21 February 1968.

  
7
. Ibid., 9 February 1968.

  
8
.
Newsweek,
12 February 1968.

  
9
. These discussions were so general in Saigon that Ambassador Bunker and General Thieu finally had to issue statements denouncing the rumors (
Washineton
Port, 11 February 1968).

10
.
Washington Post,
1 March 1968.

11
.
New York Times,
15 March 1968.

12
. Ibid., 8 March 1968.

13
.
Washington Post,
1 March 1968.

14
.
Observer
(London), 3 March 1968. See also Westmoreland,
Report
p. 160

15
.
New York Times,
1 March 1968.

16
. Robert Shaplen,
Time out of Hand,
p. 414.

17
.
New York Times,
28 February 1968.

18
. Ibid.

19
. Shaplen,
Time out of Hand,
p. 414

20
.
Washington Post,
19 February 1968.

21
. Westmoreland,
Report,
p. 169.

22
. John Bronaugh Henry, “March 1968: Continuity or Change?” This fascinating account of the events of March 1968 was written on the basis of personal interviews with General Wheeler, General Westmoreland, Clark Clifford, and others. Wheeler read the completed account and confirmed the facts above mentiond.

23
. Jean Lacouture and Philippe Devillers,
La Fin d'une guerre,
p. 19. The Débré quotation is from the
Journal officiel,
débats parlementaires, Conseil de la Republique, 1953, p. 1741.

24
.
Washington Post,
25 October 1968.

16: Nixon's War

  
1
.
Washington Post,
29 October 1969.

  
2
. The age span, perhaps, seemed reasonable enough to Americans because it would not have been excessive for the American population. But in a country where the average life-span cannot under normal conditions be much above forty-fave to fifty, the drafting of men of forty-three meant the drafting of grandfathers.

  
3
.
Army
magazine estimated that the regular, uniformed soldiers amounted to 6 percent of the entire population of 17,400,000 people (this is not counting the selt-detense forces, which amounted to another 6 percent). But over a half of the total population must have been children under fifteen, over a half of the remainder, women, and a good percentage of the remaining 25 percent disabled or beyond the age limit.
    According to
Army
the armed forces of the ARVN in October 1969 included ten regular infantry divisions, 46,000 “elite striking forces” (Marines, paratroopers, and rangers), 391,000 RF-PF, some 182,000 paramilitary troops (RF, PRU, CIDG, etc.), and an air force of eighteen squadrons with four hundred planes. (
Army,
October 1969, pp. 113–114.) This force was to be expanded a bit later.

  
4
.
New York Times,
4 October 1969.

  
5
.
New York Times,
4 October 1969.

  
6
. Nixon's statement was doubly ironic as the period 1968–1969 was the period of some of the most brutal of the American massacres. In a single six-month operation, for example, the U.S. Ninth Infantry Division reported eleven thousand “enemy killed” and seven hundred weapons captured. When asked about discrepancy between these two figures, the commanding general, Julian Ewell, said: “The Ninth Division is so good we get them before they have a chance to pick their weapons up.” The general did not, in other words, even attempt to cover up for the fact that a great proportion of “enemy killed” were civilians.

  
7
.
New York Times,
18 February 1970. Some long-term observers of the weekly “enemy killed” statistics from the ARVN have noticed that these numbers hardly ever end in a zero or a five. The Vietnamese, perhaps, realized that these would not seem quite “random” enough for MACV or the American press.

  
8
.
New York Times,
18 August 1969.

  
9
. Ibid., 18 February 1970.

10
. Dr. Samuel L. Popkin of Harvard University uncovered these incidents in the course of academic research in Vietnamese village politics.

11
. Dr. Popkin and this writer presented this thesis in a memo to Dr. Henry Kissinger in the fall of 1969. U.S. field officers said the official figure of 13,668 enemy dead was inflated.

12
. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird called the North Vietnamese attack “vicious” — an indication, perhaps, of his surprise and alarm. Once again, the U.S. military command appears to have underestimated its enemy. The
New York Times
and various television newcasters reported that MACV did not anticipate the use.of tanks or prepare the Vietnamese for the size and strength of the attacking forces.

13
. This figure came from the ARVN spokesman at the operational headquarters.

14
. Daniel Ellsberg, “Laos: What Nixon Is up to,” pp. 13–17. Signaling, as opposed to militarily effective measures, was the primary intention of the Johnson administration in the first of the “Rolling Thunder” air operations against the north.