THE LONG SLIDE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000300360131-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 131
• Publication Date: April 16, 1971
• Content Type: NSPR

STATINTL
STATINTL
STATINTL
.The .Long ~~Ce
GEOFFREY McDERMOTT
OWOjdf4:7GIA-RDP80-
oopcr gives a most human, and often
humorous, account of the Geneva Confer-
ence of 1954, which he calls 'blueprint for
a house of cards'. For the first time Com-
munist Chinese and Indochinese attend a
conference in the West. Eden irreparably
offends Dulles. Dien Bien Phu falls in the
The Lost Cnrsade: America in Vietnam by middle of the conference, without the atomic
CHESTER COOPER MacGibbon & Kee #3.75 intervention by the US which had been pre-
'The Military Art of People's War: Selected dieted. 'What finally emerged was not very
writings of General Vo Nguyen Clap attractive ... such pious platitudes as edited by RUSSELL STETLER Monthly serving the principles of Geneva" are good
Review Press #3,90 political slogans but bad policy.' I agree.
We in the West can take hope from both of Successive British governments were too
these utterly contrasting books about Viet- often to ignore this fact. It would not be
riam: in utterly contrasting ways, of course. too cynical to say that the Geneva 'agree-
Chester Cooper' was the leading expert on' merits' were signed - by other participants
Vietnam in the Central intelligence Agency but not by the US government - because
for much of the 1950s and 1960s. His excel- the word 'democratic', freely used in their
lent book is a study in frustration, both per- texts, meant diametrically opposed things to
sonal and national. He is a living proof that, the two sides. From Geneva Cooper rushed
contrary to what many people believe, there off to Manila to help Dulles set up Scato, the
are mehtbers of that powerful agency who most effective achievement of which was to
take infinite pains to judge critical internat- provide the US with a justification, on paper,
Tonal problems objectively, and to suggest f?r :n:ervcning in Vietnam. The Dulles
doveish rather than hawkish policies as far dominoes theory followed logically enough.
as possible. Unfortunately, the hawks both The serious escalation of US forces in
in the CIA and the US government have too Vietnam began under President Kennedy
often had the last word, so far. If there is and his whizz-kid Secretary of Defence Mc-
sor tcthing missing from Cooper's account, Namara. With a weak Secretary of State in
which is both comprehensive and subtle, it Dcan Rusk, the military-industrial complex
is perhaps an analysis of the conflicting in. headed by McNamara increasingly took
fluences inside the National Security Coun? over. Where there had been some 700 'milit-
cil, including the CIA; but this is easily com- my advisers' in Vietnam when Kennedy be-
prehensible, even in the absence of an Offtc- came President, the troop level had reached
ial Secrets Act in the US. 16,500 by his death in 1963. Cooper was now
Cooper's style shows that great diplomatic an adviser in the White House, but he was
affairs can be effectively described con brio unable to stem the flow, McNamara's atti.
and without dryness or pomposity; which is tilde of 'what is good for Ford is good for
seldom the case in books written by British the US and the world', and his extraordin-
diplomats. While never in favour of action arily dehumanised approach to the problem
for action's sake, he coma across as an throughout his baneful reign of seven years,
activist amongst diploma(s; so he was, and emerge very clearly from his own disagree-
Allis characteristic gave me much pleasure in able little book, The Essence of Security.
my close collaboration with him. His atti- Under President Johnson, McNamara and
tude to Britain, where he has many friends, the near-Strangelove type General West-
is always objective; he has no time for illu- moreland were completely let loose on their
signs about 'the special relationship'. IIc lays ' policy of `more is better'. Forces and mod-
bare the enormity of the part played throuh? ern armaments were poured into the war, be-
:out by France, right up to Dc Gaulle's cause the human computer McNamara' cal-
fatuous suggestion that all South-East Asia culated that sheer weight was bound to win;
should be neutralised. This suggestion is be- and what general, even if brighter than West-
ing revived, equally inanely, in some British moreland, has ever declined to have more
government circles today. forces under his command? Moreover, at
The whole dreadful story of escalation is about six-monthly intervals, top US poli-
?related with both objectivity and passion. tical authorities - as often as not septuagen-
from the foundation of the Viet Minh in. -arians - would rush about all over Asia and
.1941 up to 1970. Ho Chi Minh - Tic who elsewhere, and report that the situation was
Enlightens,' formerly named 'He Who Will vastly improved and would shortly be under
be Victorious' and 'The Patriot' - is of control completely. President Johnson was
course central to developments right up to not sensitive to the widening of the credi.
his death in September 1969. Cooper reminds bility gap, or the ever mounting protests
.us that Clap in 1945 paid tribute to 'the par- against the war, in the US and far beyond.
titularly, intimate relations with China and Cooper was a first-class official; but try
the United States, which it is a pleasant duty as he might he could not restrain the boys
to dwell upon'. In Giap's book the pleasure in the big league. He quit the White House
has turned into rage and vituperation where but kept in the closest touch with Vietnam-
t11 U5 " eso problems as assistant to Avercll Harri-
d
abortive, and sometinics farcical, Wilson
Brown-Kosygin peace discussions in 1966-7,
which I described in the NS of 18 December
,1970. For some of the time he was, pecul-
iarly, used by Wilson as a sort of Perman-
ent Under-Secretary' of the British Foreign
Office. All rather frantic, and unavailing.
And in 1969 the new President Nixon in-
herited a legacy of 541,000 US troops stuck
in the theatre, not to mention some tens of
thousands of naval and air force personnel.
Not a single Russian or Chinese was fight-
ing there.
Where, then, is the hope in all this that
I mentioned? In Cooper's last chapters,. and
in President Nixon's policy. In 'No More
Vietnams' and 'Crusades, Con mitr-hcnts, and
Constraints' Cooper deals with the besetting
sin of US foreign policy _ in the past, mis-
directed moral fervour, and pleads for a
more realistic approach to the major prob.
lems. in the nuclear sphere and that of
relations with the Soviet Union in general,
togetner with those of a gravely disunited
society at home in the US. He chides Presi-
dent Nixon for his Cambodian adventure,
and would no 'doubt say as much about Laos.
But the facts now are that the US forces
are being reduced, the South Vietnamese are
stronger, and a relatively stable government
rules in Saigon.
Giap depicts the other side of the coin.
He too covers the history of Indochina
since the 1940s. He defines his curious title
at length on pages 175-6, emphasising
the revolutionary, class, and Party character
of our ndlitary art. Its characteristic is to
defeat material force with moral force, tie-
feat what is strong with what is weak, de-
feat what is modem with what is primitive. . In the context of Vietnam he never considers
it necessary to mention nuclear weapons;
and the communists simply do without air
power. 'The strategic orientation is to pro-
mote a war by the entire people, a total and
protracted war.' He repeatedly praises 'rev-
olutionary violence'. He echoes Cooper's
metaphor of the US seeing itself as a knight
on a crusade. On a point of fact, it is inter-
esting that he dates the first US bambino
of Hanoi, in June 1966, eight days earlier
than Cooper.
It is indeed possible to admire the milit-
ary achievements of the various commun-
ist forces in Indochina, both in opposition
to the French, and to the Americans and
their allies. They have, up to a point, put
into practice the principles enunciated by
Giap; and no doubt his style of writing and
rigid Ivlarxi.st-Leninism are a heady brew
for the faithful. It strikes a non-communist,
however, quite differently, for a variety of
reasons. Giap carries de-humanisation a
whole stage further than McNamara. The
word 'I' is never once used; nor are any
individual names save Uncle Ho - always
revered - and, scattered about, those of
half a dozen men who performed particu-
e is concerne
C a t heroic martial deeds. Even Giap can-
Approved For Release'`8~'/b)(fpa IA-F`~N~`d`i 6~110A3t80litlut of his account