Engineer Memoirs
Q ..
You left Vietnam in the fall of 1967. Can you recapture what you thought about how
the war was going and American prospects at that time, forgetting what actually did
happen?
A
First, I have to say that I was distressed when the decision was made to move American
troops into Vietnam in 1965. While I was aware of the Gulf of
resolution
because I read intelligence and back channel messages in Korea relating to what was
going on in Vietnam, I was distressed that we were taking on this mission. I had been
somewhat familiar with previous studies, including the report of the team that President
Eisenhower sent to Vietnam to assess what we could or should do to help the French.
The advice as a result of that mission was, in effect, "Stay out of Vietnam!" I felt very
strongly that that was still the right advice.
So, my first reaction was distress that we were going ahead and taking an active part.
after I'd been in Vietnam for a few months, I came back to Washington-in late May
or early June of
report to the Department of Defense on construction
activities and to continue some of our planning for
requirements. While there-I
was only in the States about ten days- 1 began to realize that the public perception of
the war was changing.
When I got back to Vietnam, General Westmoreland asked me what was going on in
the States; what was my perception? My response to him was that I thought things
would be all right if the people would just stay behind us, but I saw evidence that
questions were beginning to be asked and the support for the war wasn't (comparable
to) that existing in previous wars. All that to say that my first feeling was that we
should never have been there; second, there was not universal support for the effort.
This was reinforced by the presidential decision that we weren't going to change the
national economy and go on a wartime footing, but would have the "guns and butter"
approach. I felt it impossible to do both.
With this background-let's get back to how I felt in late September 1967. We were
reaching the level of effort
had been approved. It was very clear from the way
things were going that additional effort was needed. And I questioned whether it was
going to be
There had been limits set on the war and how it would be fought. The restrictions such
as a ban on invasion of North Vietnam and constrained activity for use of air attacks
again set limits such as we had seen in Korea. My view was influenced by the fact that
I had become convinced that we had made the political decision, possibly without fully
realizing it, that we weren't really going to fight the war to win it. In effect, a theory
of gradualism, as in Korea, had developed, which, in my opinion, foredoomed our
efforts.
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