54 VIETNAM
AMERICAN^ PHOTO^ ARCHIVE/ALAMYmemorandum on May 11, 1961, succinctly laid out a pol-
icy of containment:The U.S. objective and concept of operations stated
in the report are approved: to prevent Communist
domination of South Vietnam; to create in that
country a viable and increasingly democratic soci-
ety, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series
of mutually supporting actions of a military, politi-
cal, economic, psychological and covert character
designed to achieve this objective.Johnson, in an address in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1966,
said, “South Vietnam is important to the security of the
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“is buying time not only for South Vietnam, but it is buy-
ing time for a new and a vital, growing Asia to emerge
and develop additional strength. If South Vietnam were
to collapse under Communist pressure from the North,
the progress in the rest of Asia would be greatly endan-
gered. And don’t you forget that!”The second foreign policy principle that became a war
aim in Vietnam was the promotion of democracy. In the
immediate aftermath of World War II, the Western allies
were frustrated by the many promises broken by Soviet
leader Josef Stalin, from lingering military detachments
in Iran to the lack of free elections in Poland.
In Vietnam, the U.S. goal was to buttress the feeble
but existing governing institutions left behind as the
French withdrew after the Dien Bien Phu defeat and
the 1954 Geneva Conference. The conference agree-
ment temporarily partitioned Vietnam into a commu-
nist North and democratic South and provided for an
election in 1956 to unify the country.
Washington was keenly aware of just how fragile new
democracies, especially in poor countries, could be. The
Defense Department estimated that $28.5 billion was
spent on democracy and development activities during
the most active phase of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.^ By
the end 1956, the trajectories of Saigon and Hanoi were
on a collision course. South Vietnam and the U.S. no lon-
ger had any immediate expectation of a democratic con-sensus taking hold over the entire region. They anticipat-
ed a divided Vietnam, like Korea, with the South shielded
by the U.S. and its allies for years to come.
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1964, he wrote: “We are steadfast in our determination
to promote the security of the free world, not only
through our commitment to join in the defense of free-
dom, but also through our pledge to contribute to the
economic and social development of less privileged, in-
dependent peoples.”^
In 1965 Johnson, whose focus on empowering the
poor was both a domestic and an international policy
goal, told an audience at Johns Hopkins University:<PMÅZ[\[\MXQ[NWZ\PMKW]V\ZQM[WN;W]\PMI[\)[QI
to associate themselves in a greatly expanded co-
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Congress to join in a billion dollar American invest-
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to enrich the hopes and existence of more than a
hundred million people.Johnson, like his predecessor, believed that only a
modernizing Vietnam could develop rooted democratic
institutions and meet the needs of its populace.
Nixon was committed to a policy of “Vietnamiza-
tion”—developing, as quickly as possible, stable South
Vietnamese government and military institutions while
ruthlessly forcing the North Vietnamese to the negotiat-
ing table by powerful U.S. military intervention. This
was an exit strategy with development and democrati-
zation elements, rather than a moral commitment to
some sort of democratic ideal.A third U.S. war aim was to demonstrate U.S. resolve. It
was a communist maxim that Western governments
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The U.S. government felt that it had to demonstrate
to both the communists and America’s allies the credi-
bility of its security guarantees. The U.S. did not want to
appear as if it was vacillating in Vietnam because that
could signal to countries such as the Philippines orLyndon B. Johnson and his advisers meet on Oct. 29, 1968, to review the situation
in Vietnam. Johnson said in a 1965 speech that the United States had pledged to
help South Vietnam defend its independence, “and I intend to keep our promise.”