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When Brilliance Blinds: America's Descent into Vietnam
The year was 1963, and a young prisoner of war in North Vietnam had no access to free press reporting. Instead, he received news from Hanoi Hannah, whose propaganda broadcasts were designed to break his spirit. The Vietnamese exaggerated their victories, never mentioning their defeats. For this prisoner-future Senator John McCain-living without a free press in an undemocratic nation was among the worst privations of captivity. Years later, after his release, he would arrange a private study of the Vietnam War at the National War College, finding David Halberstam's "The Best and the Brightest" most enlightening about how America had stumbled into this catastrophe.
The tragedy of Vietnam was asking men to suffer for a cause the country wouldn't fully support. Our leaders lacked the resolve to succeed because they misjudged everything: the enemy's determination, American power, our allies, and themselves. These weren't ordinary men-they truly were our best and brightest-extraordinarily intelligent, educated, experienced, and capable. Yet their confidence exceeded their vision, breeding a fatal hubris that would cost America dearly in both blood and national confidence.
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The Kennedy Circle: Brilliant Men with Fatal Flaws
On a cold December day in 1960, President-elect John F. Kennedy met with Robert Lovett, the quintessential Eastern establishment figure who embodied expertise and represented the Stimson-Marshall-Acheson tradition of public service. Kennedy, admitting he knew only politicians after five years of campaigning, sought Lovett's guidance on assembling a government of serious men. This meeting symbolized Kennedy's desire to bring the "best and brightest" into his administration-men of intellect and force who would define a common good and get America moving again.
The contrast with the Eisenhower years was stark. Ike's stock had fallen dramatically, with the country growing restless under what was perceived as flabby chamber-of-commerce leadership. The Kennedy men presented themselves as "hard-nosed realists"-tough, athletic, intellectual. They boasted of being the generation that fought WWII as company commanders, though this was largely myth. Most of the key foreign policy figures-Rusk, McNamara, Bundy, McCone-had not seen combat leadership.
The media celebrated their brilliance obsessively, counting Rhodes scholars and books written by administration members. They were portrayed as too busy for cocktail parties, preferring intimate dinners with good wine among themselves. Kennedy himself became an object of fascination-his reading habits, diet, social life all becoming trendsetting news, prompting James MacGregor Burns to mockingly write of Kennedy as "omniscient," "omnipresent," and "omnipotent"-"more than a lion, more than a fox. He's Superman!"
This confluence of brilliant men impressed even Vice President Johnson, who reportedly called McNamara "the fellow from Ford with the Stacomb on his hair" after a Cabinet meeting. Less widely quoted but more prophetic was Sam Rayburn's response to Johnson's enthusiasm: "Well, Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once."
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The Secretary of State Search: Settling for Mediocrity
Kennedy's search for a Secretary of State revealed much about his administration's approach. Rather than seeking talent or brilliance, they looked for the candidate with fewest objections-someone who made small waves. They approached the most important Cabinet position as presidential candidates often approached the Vice-Presidency: choosing someone who offended the fewest people.
Dean Rusk emerged as everybody's number two choice. Everyone spoke well of him-hard-working, patient, balanced, steady. He received endorsements from Robert Lovett, Dean Acheson, Fulbright, and Paul Nitze. Only McGeorge Bundy opposed him, sensing something "second-rate" in Rusk.
The Establishment's selection process eliminated candidates methodically: most well-known figures were too old, Kennedy wanted a Democrat, and Rusk fit perfectly-nominally Democratic, Southern but not too Southern, intellectual but not excessively so, with China experience but no problematic positions.
Throughout the Kennedy years, Rusk remained an outsider. The President never called him by his first name as he did other officials. Washington rumors constantly suggested his imminent departure. Photos from the era show Rusk and his wife looking dowdy and tired among the young, flashy Kennedy people-like "chaperons at the party." Rusk described himself, not without pride, as looking like "the neighborhood bartender."
The formal, by-the-book Rusk never adjusted to Kennedy's freewheeling style. Their relationship became exactly what Lovett had warned against-a weak Secretary of State who couldn't effectively counter advocates of military force within the administration.
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McGeorge Bundy: The Embodiment of Elite Intelligence
McGeorge Bundy embodied the central theme binding the Kennedy men together: the belief that "sheer intelligence and rationality could answer and solve anything." Even Kennedy spoke of Bundy with awe, saying "You can't beat brains" and appreciating how Bundy could anticipate his needs before he knew them himself.
Though perceived as quintessentially Boston, the Bundys actually hailed from Grand Rapids, Michigan. McGeorge Bundy's true Boston credentials came through his mother's side-he was a Lowell, one of New England's most prestigious families descending from Percival Lowle who arrived in 1639.
At Groton, Bundy became legendary, capturing every honor while displaying remarkable intellectual gifts. He was an outstanding debater, winning the Franklin D. Roosevelt Trophy three times. His teacher Richard Irons found his essays superior to the reference books he used. Once, unprepared for class, he "read" a brilliant paper on the Duke of Marlborough from a blank sheet while his classmates giggled.
Breaking Boston tradition by choosing Yale over Harvard, Bundy arrived as the first student with three perfect college entrance exam scores. His freshman essay "Is Lenin a Marxist?" so impressed professor David Owen that Owen claimed few Yale faculty could have written it. Bundy became class orator and Phi Beta Kappa, writing for the Yale Daily News without the usual tryout process.
In the Kennedy Administration, Bundy became the indispensable "traffic cop," protecting the President from bureaucracy while channeling promising talent. Sensing Kennedy's dissatisfaction with State, Bundy built his own elite mini-State Department of bright young men who could move quickly and provide alternatives. He assembled extraordinary talent from across government and academia and had the rare ability to "evoke whatever excellent existed in a person," making every encounter "like a mini Ph.D. exam."
But his thinking was primarily functional and operational-too pragmatic, too focused on immediate problem-solving rather than long-range perspective. He always had a single answer to a single question but was wary of philosophies, making him effective at crisis management but sometimes prone to short-term, reactive thinking.
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Robert McNamara: The Brilliant Manager
Robert McNamara arrived at the Defense Department at full speed, immediately identifying key problems and assembling teams to study them. He recruited brilliant mathematical minds from universities and think tanks-men steeped in Cold War theory, nuclear strategy and weapons deployment.
McNamara was intelligent, forceful, courageous and decent-everything but wise. Haunted by his poor performance during the Bay of Pigs, he rushed forward on Vietnam to protect his President. Despite knowing nothing about Asia, poverty, or people, he applied corporate management principles to guerrilla warfare, believing America's production technology could solve Vietnam's problems.
With his slicked-down hair, rimless glasses, and imposing presence, he embodied American drive and certitude. He pushed everyone, especially himself, with long hours, working breakfasts, and no wasted time. He demanded written briefings because "I can read faster than they can talk," making exceptions only for pet projects like the electronic barrier.
McNamara's mind was mathematical and analytical, using facts and statistics to intimidate others with his rationality. His legendary attention to detail-once identifying a contradiction between slides 11 and 869 during an eight-hour briefing-inspired both awe and fear. Even when his mathematical approach to war failed against "those funny little far-off men in their raggedy pajamas," he still framed failure in cost-effectiveness terms.
His Vietnam visits became elaborate charades that institutionalized hopeless lies. He sought data that confirmed his preconceptions rather than Vietnamese realities. During briefings, he favored officers who presented information in his preferred statistical format rather than those offering genuine insight. In one telling incident at Danang in 1965, McNamara praised a Marine colonel who had quickly adapted his briefing to McNamara's preference for percentages and statistics, completely missing the actual situation.
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The Bay of Pigs: Prelude to Vietnam
The Bay of Pigs disaster in April 1961 was the most shattering event of Kennedy's first year. The invasion's failure forced Kennedy to adopt a harder foreign policy line both to reassure domestic critics and to prove his resolve to the Soviets.
The Bay of Pigs presaged the later Vietnam escalation, sharing key elements: misreading a non-white nation's aspirations; applying Western anti-communism inappropriately; institutional momentum; excessive secrecy; decisions by "private men" rather than "public men"; and minimal moral consideration or common sense.
The fundamental error wasn't tactical but strategic-completely misreading Cuban sentiment, where a U.S.-sponsored invasion would only rally support for Castro. Yet post-mortem analysis focused on tactical failures rather than questioning the moral right to launch such an attack. McGeorge Bundy dismissed it as "a brick through the window" while focusing on operational failures.
Despite McGeorge Bundy dismissing the Bay of Pigs as merely "a brick through the window," the disaster actually intensified the administration's hawkish tendencies. At Defense, McNamara pushed to expand America's missile arsenal from 450 to 950, while the Joint Chiefs wanted 3,000. When White House science advisors pointed out that 450 missiles were militarily equivalent to 950, McNamara acknowledged this but insisted on the higher number because it was "the smallest number we can take up on the Hill without getting murdered."
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The Roots of Vietnam Policy
America's early postwar policy toward Indochina was marked by ambivalence. Though allowing the French to return, the U.S. initially withheld full support, balancing anti-colonial traditions against supporting a threatened ally. This even-handed approach effectively favored French reassertion of control. Secretary Marshall, representing a "pre-American-empire generation," acknowledged both colonial injustices and Ho Chi Minh's Communist ties but offered no solution.
Two events transformed American perceptions: the hardening Cold War in Europe and China's fall to communism. These, coupled with the Korean War and McCarthy's rise, dramatically narrowed the spectrum of acceptable political attitudes. The Democratic Party found itself defensive about "losing China," while Dean Acheson, architect of militant anti-communism, was attacked for being too soft.
National security planners like James Forrestal saw the Soviet conflict in ideological rather than geopolitical terms. Forrestal enthusiastically promoted George Kennan's warnings about Soviet intentions, which became the intellectual foundation for America's postwar diplomacy. Ironically, Kennan eventually broke with other foreign policy architects, believing they had exploited his ideas to justify militarizing American foreign policy when he had been talking more about Russia than Communism.
By 1954, the French command, frustrated by elusive guerrilla warfare, devised what they thought would be a clever trap at Dienbienphu. With typical Western arrogance, they built positions in the valley, leaving high ground to the Vietminh, violating warfare's cardinal rule. When the garrison was trapped and being pounded daily, pressure grew for American intervention.
General Matthew Ridgway's Army survey team had produced findings that destroyed any illusion that air power alone could resolve the situation in Indochina. The report outlined its heavy price: massive troop requirements, monthly draft calls of 100,000, and a prolonged guerrilla war against a population likely supporting the Vietminh. Eisenhower's decision-making process in 1954 contrasted sharply with Johnson's approach eleven years later-genuinely consulting Congress rather than manipulating it, seeking allies' advice sincerely, examining realistic cost projections, and refusing to separate bombing from ground combat considerations.
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The Kennedy Administration's Vietnam Decisions
The Kennedy era began with a sense of glittering promise-brilliant men sweeping into Washington to get America moving again. These were men of action rather than contemplation, answering history's urgent call, bringing intellect and force together to define a common good.
By mid-1961, Kennedy had grown deeply frustrated with the conflicting information about Vietnam. He told aides he couldn't believe the military's reports and had to rely on newspapers, yet he also ranted against the journalists in Vietnam. The fundamental issue had shifted from gathering accurate information to managing policy changes while holding his fractured administration together.
On November 11, Kennedy reached a compromise: he would send American advisors and support units but no combat troops. McNamara, ever loyal, quickly revised his recommendations to match the President's decision. Kennedy told the Joint Chiefs they could continue planning for combat operations-giving them something to dream about while denying their immediate request. The final package emphasized nation-building and reform, reflecting the liberal administration's belief that American-style modernization could revive South Vietnam despite Diem's resistance.
Though Kennedy believed he'd held the line against military intervention, his decision to increase American presence from 600 to 15,000 men fundamentally changed the commitment. The escalation required heightened rhetoric to justify the aid and expanded American awareness of Vietnam. Most significantly, Kennedy had activated the military as major players who would now dominate official reporting and press for ever-increasing commitments.
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Johnson Takes Command
Lyndon Johnson's early months as president were marked by constant motion and action. The nation, grateful for his leadership after Kennedy's assassination, saw him as a healer who would hold the country together. While Kennedy had been the experimenter who ventured into new areas like civil rights-causing division and tension-Johnson would heal both the assassination's wounds and the tensions from Kennedy's policies.
Johnson inherited Kennedy's impressive foreign policy team and was somewhat in awe of their credentials. McGeorge Bundy, sensing doubts about Johnson among his staff, urged them not to be "Eastern snobs" about the new president. Some hoped for an "Olympian union"-Kennedy's style in foreign affairs with Johnson's domestic force.
Johnson's immediate response upon learning of the deteriorating situation in Vietnam was definitive: "I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went."
1964 became a critical but wasted year for Vietnam policy. Johnson's administration deliberately avoided creating a sense of crisis, playing down provocations that would later justify escalation. They sought to keep Vietnam quiet through the election, refusing to make important decisions while events steadily diminished their options.
The leadership believed they could control events, but this was an illusion. Time had been closing off options since 1945-46, when a favorable political settlement would have been possible. By 1964, the Communists were stronger, Saigon weaker, and America more committed after the Tonkin Gulf incident.
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The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation
By summer 1964, Johnson's political position strengthened considerably. Polls showed him running well among traditional non-supporters and cutting into Republican voters. The white backlash against civil rights progress hadn't materialized as a significant issue, and Goldwater's economic conservatism limited his appeal to blue-collar voters who preferred Wallace.
Johnson's desire for congressional protection on Vietnam was finally satisfied in late July when the Gulf of Tonkin incident provided the patriotic factor he needed for his resolution. The incident's origins traced back to January, when Johnson had authorized General Krulak and the Joint Chiefs to plan covert activities (codenamed 34A) against North Vietnam under General Harkins' command.
The deeper roots of this approach lay in Cold War mentality that had normalized covert operations as legitimate diplomatic tools. Over time, high-level officials became increasingly comfortable with "dirty tricks," seeing opposition to such tactics as weakness.
On August 2, North Vietnamese forces, believing these were coordinated attacks, engaged the USS Maddox. A second disputed incident occurred on August 4 when the Maddox and C. Turner Joy reported being under attack. Johnson ordered retaliatory bombing of North Vietnamese PT boat bases, destroying numerous vessels and an oil depot at Vinh. The next day, he boasted crudely to reporters about humiliating Ho Chi Minh. Later, he would privately joke, "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there," revealing his own doubts about the incident.
The Tonkin Resolution passed with only Morse and Gruening voting against it. McNamara misled Congress on specific points and completely omitted discussion of American covert operations that had provoked the North Vietnamese response. Had the full story been known, Senate hearings would likely have followed, undermining the President's position.
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The Decision to Bomb
As 1964 ended, Johnson had won the presidency as a peace candidate yet stood on the brink of war. The administration had convinced itself bombing wasn't really war-just a way to prevent using greater power, something quick that would be over shortly.
McNamara became the forceful advocate for bombing in January, pushed by military leadership. He hated failure and was determined to win. For McNamara and his deputy John McNaughton, avoiding a humiliating American defeat was the primary motivation (70% according to McNaughton's calculation), while containing China was secondary (20%), and helping South Vietnamese was tertiary (10%).
When the Vietcong struck American barracks at Pleiku, Bundy was transformed into an advocate for retaliation. Johnson convened the National Security Council not to determine policy but to inform officials which way things were headed. During the NSC meeting, Mike Mansfield alone questioned the retaliatory bombing, expressing concern about escalation and potential war with China. Johnson dismissed these concerns with patriotic rhetoric about defending American soldiers.
The decision to begin sustained bombing of North Vietnam came on February 13, 1965, two days after another Vietcong attack on U.S. barracks at Qui Nhon. Unlike the 1954 decision-making process when Army Chief of Staff Matthew Ridgway had emphatically warned that air power and ground power couldn't be separated, in 1965 the bombing decision was treated as entirely separate from any ground troop commitment.
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The Commitment of Ground Troops
The bombing campaign, code-named Rolling Thunder, was designed in the minds of civilian leaders to force North Vietnam to negotiate, thus avoiding the need for combat troops. Yet intelligence experts already knew the attacks at Pleiku and Qui Nhon were signals that Hanoi would never capitulate to bombing pressure. Just nine days after authorizing the bombing campaign, General William Westmoreland requested two Marine battalions to provide security for the Danang air base.
In March 1965, a crucial struggle began over deploying American combat troops to Vietnam, with Westmoreland and Taylor taking opposing positions. CINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs supported force escalation, while Army Chief of Staff Harold Johnson played a pivotal role, eventually siding with the advocates. The debate encompassed troop numbers and strategy, evolving from Taylor's cautious "enclave strategy" to Westmoreland's aggressive "search-and-destroy" approach by June-a progression with minimal civilian planning that steadily deepened American involvement.
By early June, after another devastating ARVN defeat near Quang Ngai, Westmoreland requested a major American troop commitment-thirty-five battalions immediately with nine more potentially needed later. On June 17, Taylor finally endorsed this assessment, removing the last restraint. When General Wheeler asked if these forty-four battalions would be enough to convince the enemy they couldn't win, Westmoreland cautiously replied that while this would establish a favorable balance by year's end, "further forces would be needed in 1966, and beyond that."
The administration's secrecy created a nightmare for George Reedy, Johnson's press secretary. Caught between demanding reporters and Johnson's information blackout, Reedy watched his reputation for honesty dissolve daily. Johnson kept him completely uninformed about Vietnam decisions so he could truthfully claim ignorance, while simultaneously berating him for negative press coverage.
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The Consequences of America's Hubris
In late July 1965, Johnson announced increasing troops from 75,000 to 125,000, though the actual decision involved committing up to 200,000. When asked if this represented a policy change, Johnson falsely claimed it "does not imply any change in policy whatever"-though it marked the beginning of transforming what had been a South Vietnamese war into primarily an American one.
The resulting "consensus" supporting the war was built on deception. Congress hadn't truly been consulted, the military remained restless without the reserve call-up they wanted, and Johnson deliberately kept decisions vague to protect his domestic agenda.
While American officials later claimed they escalated because North Vietnam had done so first, this was untrue. Though some North Vietnamese regiments had been identified in the South by early 1965, they hadn't yet engaged in battle. Only after American combat troops arrived in summer 1965 did Hanoi match the escalation, sending first-line NVA units down the trails to neutralize the American build-up.
By late 1965, Washington's civilian leaders had completely lost control of events without even realizing it. The reins now belonged to Hanoi's Politburo and Westmoreland in Saigon. If Westmoreland received more troops, Hanoi would match the escalation, creating an endless cycle.
The Tet offensive in 1968 changed everything. For the first time, the enemy fought in cities rather than distant jungles, allowing American media to document their resilience day after day. The credibility of Westmoreland's attrition strategy collapsed, and with it, Johnson's credibility.
They had lost it all-these brilliant men swept forward by their belief in anti-Communism and America's omnipotence. Johnson had doubts but saw no way out without appearing weak. They chose exterior toughness rather than the interior courage of telling Americans the truth. They never involved the people, manipulating public opinion with half-truths about why we were fighting, how deeply involved we'd become, and how long we'd stay.
Each player lost what he valued most. Johnson lost his Great Society to a war he never wanted. McNamara lost his dream of controlling the Pentagon and the arms race. Bundy, the rationalist Establishment man, saw the elite's right to rule challenged by Senate doves and previously excluded groups. Rusk watched his vision of mutual security and global commitment replaced by a new sense of limits. Taylor's citizen-democratic Army was ravaged, with the best officers driven out and the military-civilian gap widening. The Democratic Party itself was damaged, having accepted Dulles's Asia policies and then brought America into Vietnam.
The best and brightest had led America into its greatest foreign policy disaster, proving that intelligence without wisdom is perhaps the most dangerous quality of all.
