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A review by gregbrown
Lessons in Disaster by Gordon M. Goldstein
4.0
Surprisingly good book about the decision-making process around Vietnam from 1961-65, with special attention paid to the role of MacGeorge Bundy. The book itself is a strange shadow of an unpublished book on Vietnam, one Bundy started co-authoring with Goldstein before his death. Despite Goldstein's efforts to make it publishable after his death, the estate spiked its release—so we get Goldstein writing a history book about the research they did, along with Bundy's scraps of recollections in interviews and marginalia.
It sounds like a lesson in disaster itself, especially with Bundy's early insistence that he's uninterested in considering Hanoi's decision-making in all of this, or the facts on the ground in Vietnam at any point; by limiting his study to administration memos, he seems to be reproducing the same biases and ideological assumptions that led to escalating the war. Yet there was enough real dissent in the administration that it is worth asking why it wasn't considered more carefully.
Some of the interesting stuff here I haven't seen in other books was the extent to which Eisenhower was being consulted by LBJ before Vietnam decisions, and his consistent advocacy for more military involvement. Likewise, Bundy concludes that some meetings before a significant troop increase were largely staged, with LBJ's decision made days earlier when McNamara sounded out Westmoreland for his minimum acceptable increase.
In the book's epilogue, Goldstein tackles Bundy's conclusion later in life that JFK would not have allowed ground troops in Vietnam. While it's the strongest case I've seen for the premise, I'm still unconvinced: the domestic political incentives seem too strong pushing for more involvement in Vietnam. He places so much faith in JFK's private pledge to disentangle from Vietnam after the election, even in the face of all his advisors pushing otherwise. Given the statements were made in 1963, it's hard not to read the pledges as a way of justifying continued inaction to himself and others, and it's not clear that by 1965 he wouldn't have found another justification.
And as LBJ found out, it's very easy to slowly escalate beyond your own guardrails: once you have bombers stationed there, the airbases can be shelled; once you have soldiers guarding the airbases, they can be attacked; once you have soldiers actively patrolling near the airbases, they can be ambushed.
It sounds like a lesson in disaster itself, especially with Bundy's early insistence that he's uninterested in considering Hanoi's decision-making in all of this, or the facts on the ground in Vietnam at any point; by limiting his study to administration memos, he seems to be reproducing the same biases and ideological assumptions that led to escalating the war. Yet there was enough real dissent in the administration that it is worth asking why it wasn't considered more carefully.
Some of the interesting stuff here I haven't seen in other books was the extent to which Eisenhower was being consulted by LBJ before Vietnam decisions, and his consistent advocacy for more military involvement. Likewise, Bundy concludes that some meetings before a significant troop increase were largely staged, with LBJ's decision made days earlier when McNamara sounded out Westmoreland for his minimum acceptable increase.
In the book's epilogue, Goldstein tackles Bundy's conclusion later in life that JFK would not have allowed ground troops in Vietnam. While it's the strongest case I've seen for the premise, I'm still unconvinced: the domestic political incentives seem too strong pushing for more involvement in Vietnam. He places so much faith in JFK's private pledge to disentangle from Vietnam after the election, even in the face of all his advisors pushing otherwise. Given the statements were made in 1963, it's hard not to read the pledges as a way of justifying continued inaction to himself and others, and it's not clear that by 1965 he wouldn't have found another justification.
And as LBJ found out, it's very easy to slowly escalate beyond your own guardrails: once you have bombers stationed there, the airbases can be shelled; once you have soldiers guarding the airbases, they can be attacked; once you have soldiers actively patrolling near the airbases, they can be ambushed.