Much has been written of Johnson’s decisions regarding the Vietnam War, much of it by commentators predisposed to criticize LBJ for one reason or another. Today it is generally believed that Johnson was bent on escalation and full-scale war, whereas Kennedy had been essentially a man of peace, seeking withdrawal from a military confrontation over the future of South Vietnam. According to this unflattering stereotype of LBJ, only in March of 1968 — after the Tet Offensive — was he finally dissuaded from a policy of escalation. It also has been said that, in a reassessment of the war precipitated by that Communist offensive, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and other ‘wise men’ prevailed on Johnson to abandon war for peace.

Contrary to that prevailing wisdom, Bunker said that by early 1967 President Johnson was already seeking a formula for de-escalation and eventual disengagement of American forces from Vietnam. Why he did not make such plans part of his public discussion of the war, only he knew. Today, with both Bunker and LBJ gone, I can do no more to verify what Bunker told me about President Johnson’s decisions than report his recollections of their conversation and demonstrate that every subsequent action taken by both men was consistent with those 1967 instructions.

From the start of his service as ambassador in Saigon in 1967, Bunker set his mind on four goals. First, South Vietnam’s leadership had to be convinced that it was necessary to build a legitimate government reflecting the country’s political forces. Second, a successful pacification program should create a civil order of legal process in the rural areas, removing politically motivated armed violence from the lives of the ordinary people. Third, the South Vietnamese army must take over from American combat forces the task of keeping the large Communist fighting units at bay. And fourth, the South Vietnamese government had to promote economic development to improve living conditions for its people and finance the continued struggle against the North.

Bunker encountered no opposition to the policy of withdrawal from General Westmoreland. Westmoreland had accepted the new policies set in motion at the Guam conference in April 1967 regarding constitutional reform, presidential elections, rural pacification and upgrading South Vietnam’s armed forces.

Westmoreland’s strategic posture in 1967 incorporated his prior understanding of American objectives to defend South Vietnam from outside attack. His famous 44-battalion request of June 1965 had been made not strategically — to change the fundamental parameters of American policy — but tactically, to confront an immediate threat of North Vietnamese escalation. As his 1965 concept of operations made clear, American units would not be introduced into combat to assume responsibility for a strategic offensive against Hanoi. Rather, they would, in three phases, blunt the enemy’s conventional attack, then clean out major Communist base and staging areas within South Vietnam and finally push Communist units out to South Vietnam’s borders with Laos and Cambodia. Once those tasks were accomplished, as Westmoreland had implied in 1965, South Vietnamese forces would again carry the brunt of any continued combat with the Communists, and American combat units could disengage.

Westmoreland’s ‘Commander’s Estimate of the Situation,’ submitted on March 26, 1965, had defined the American objectives in South Vietnam as ‘A. Cause the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam] to cease its political and military support of the VC in SVN [South Vietnam]‘ and ‘B. Enable an anti-Communist GVN [government of Vietnam] to survive so that ultimately it may defeat the VC insurgency inside SVN.’ Westmoreland developed his assessment of the war’s future evolution into a three-phase concept of operations. Phase I would employ the initial reinforcements to prevent the loss of South Vietnam and halt the losing trend by the end of 1965. Phase II would employ additional U.S. and allied forces during the first half of 1966 to destroy enemy forces operating in high priority areas of South Vietnam. Phase III would require all allied forces to work in tandem to deny the enemy use of base areas within South Vietnam and to destroy all enemy forces capable of massing within the country. In mid-1965, Westmoreland expected Phase III to be completed by the end of 1967 — at which point American allied forces could begin to withdraw from South Vietnam as that country’s government became able to establish and maintain internal order and to defend its borders.

Bunker’s arrival in South Vietnam coincided with military operations leading up to Phase III of Westmoreland’s original war plan. Under those circumstances, it was not hard for Bunker to work with Westmoreland in planning for the next phase — as yet unannounced — when American troops would begin to withdraw. In his spring 1967 force augmentation requests to President Johnson, General Westmoreland indicated that American forces could be withdrawn when Hanoi’s aggressive capabilities inside South Vietnam had been permanently nullified.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in November 1967, Westmoreland laid before the public his concept of withdrawal-as-victory. Few took notice of his prescription at the time. Westmoreland further predicted that American forces would begin to withdraw from South Vietnam in 1969, as in fact they did.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had visited Saigon in July 1967. Seeking to improve South Vietnam’s military might, General Westmoreland presented a series of proposals to strengthen Saigon’s regular forces and improve South Vietnam’s less well-equipped provincial guards and village militia. Quarterly reviews would be instituted to measure progress against planned objectives and to ensure that course corrections were made as needed. Westmoreland would involve the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff in preparation of the combined campaign plan for 1968, which set forth specific goals for each military unit engaged in the war. The proposals were the first results of Bunker’s effort to turn the war over to the South Vietnamese.

Secretary of Defense McNamara stood behind those proposals. He told the South Vietnamese leaders that their future would be better secured over the long run by improvements in the performance of their forces in combat than by reliance on American fighting power.

McNamara delivered more significant news to Ambassador Bunker and General Westmoreland: American Reserve units would not be called into service to fight the Vietnam War. The limits of American involvement had clearly been reached, and President Johnson had decided to authorize only a modest increase in American forces deployed in South Vietnam. Westmoreland’s requests for significant force augmentation were denied. President Johnson wanted no further escalation. On August 3, 1967, the American force ceiling was officially raised to 525,000 men, less than General Westmoreland’s minimum request of the previous spring. This little-noticed presidential decision is perhaps the best evidence on record that Johnson had been quite serious about finding a way out of the war without using more American forces.

Johnson’s decision during the summer of 1967 to limit American participation in fighting against Hanoi effectively prevented the United States from achieving a conventional victory in the Vietnam War. The president’s decision not to give Westmoreland enough troops to more quickly grind up Hanoi’s regulars and clean out enemy base areas inside South Vietnam increased Americans’ frustration with the conflict. But both of those decisions were consistent with the strategic direction President Johnson had earlier given to Ambassador Bunker. America’s victory or defeat in the war would be determined by the South Vietnamese.

President Johnson’s unwillingness to commit additional troops to the war was welcomed by Hanoi’s senior strategist, Vo Nguyen Giap. He believed that Hanoi’s strategy of attrition was clearly beginning to achieve results. During the summer of 1967, Giap wrote an article published in English as ‘The Big Victory, the Great Task,’ wherein he presciently concluded: ‘At present, the United States does not have enough troops to meet Westmoreland’s requirements … . America’s economic and military resources, although great, are not boundless.’ Giap then set in motion preparations for the massive offensive scheduled to take place during the Tet holiday in early 1968.

Perhaps the most appropriate way for observers and historians to phrase the basic inquiry about Vietnam is not ‘Did America’s strategy work?’ but rather ‘Was American confidence in the South Vietnamese well-placed?’ The proper question stresses nation building more than conventional war-fighting techniques. If the second question is the more relevant, then responsibility for the war’s outcome rested with America’s civilian political leadership, which alone had to judge whether or not to lend support to an allied nation.

Even a cursory survey of the record indicates that American military operations were successful in achieving the limited nation-building goals established by policymakers. In 1972, an invasion force of 22 North Vietnamese divisions was defeated on South Vietnamese battlefields through the combined application of American air power and South Vietnamese ground operations. Guerrilla forces supporting the Communist effort within South Vietnam had by then collapsed, and the South Vietnamese population had been mobilized in every village, town and city to support an elected government in Saigon. American forces withdrew from South Vietnam when North Vietnam had yet to win the war. North Vietnam’s attack against South Vietnam did not succeed until some time after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

As Johnson’s personal representative, Bunker went to Saigon in 1967 and began the process that led to a systematic phase-out and withdrawal of American combat forces. When Bunker left the country in May 1973, all American combat forces had long since been withdrawn. South Vietnam was defending itself and could boast an economy showing resilience in the midst of war. And the Vietnamese Communists had signed a peace treaty pledging to respect South Vietnam’s autonomy and independence. Where his predecessors as ambassador had encountered frustration and failure, Bunker had succeeded. He had been a superb choice.

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The article was written by Stephen B. Young and originally published in the February 1998 issue of Vietnam Magazine.

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