What can be learned from reading the Pentagon Papers?

Several months ago, I wrote a series about Ho Chi Minh.¹ In the research for the series, there were still parts of the story that didn’t really make sense. I discovered some answers in the Pentagon Papers.² A few weeks ago, I wrote about the history of the documents.³ This time I want to talk about what I found while reading the papers.

• Why were the documents so controversial?

• What made US intelligence sour on Ho Chi Minh between 1945 to 1950?

• Why did the US support a coup to get rid of Diem?

• Finally, in a section of part 1 titled “Ho Chi Minh, Asian Tito?”, I found a section that asked the same question that emerged from my own article series. Was Ho a Vietnamese patriot or a Communist agent?

---

Questioning Motives

In 1971 a Time Magazine article⁴ beautifully summarizes the controversy reported by the New York Times and Washington Post.

• The US provoked the war with the North

• Military Actions were being concealed from the American People

• Members of the Presidential Cabinet were pessimistic about the war

• The Government had other motives they were not fully disclosing: Chinese and Communist containment verses the official narrative of preserving Democracy

• US intelligence was not in full agreement about the Domino Theory. A CIA Memorandum mentioned that Communism would stop with Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. ⁵

Looking back fifty years later, the Pentagon Papers seem less controversial than initially reported. People nowadays think ‘of course the government is lying’, but at the time, it was shocking.

Much of the controversy surrounds two memos that were not even included within the McNamara study, but were supplementary documents that found their way into the files that were leaked to the press. One memo, sent to President Johnson from McNamara, mentioned that the war had the intention of Chinese containment. Another memo from McNaughton mentioned that US policy was mostly driven by the motivation of the US to avoid embarrassment followed by a motivation to contain China. ⁶⁷ These memos are often included within the Pentagon Papers, but are actually a separate set of documents. When the papers were published, these memos were included in the Gravel edition⁸ (the first public publication of sections of the Pentagon Papers). When the papers were released, feelings of the war were still raw, but fifty years have elapsed for feelings to dissipate. Now we can look at these events from a historical point of view. Today, these documents are easily found online.

The Pentagon Papers give us some wonderful insight into the thinking of the President. Not only can we see what they knew at the time, but we also have hindsight to fill in what they probably didn’t know. If we make a timeline of certain key facts related to the war, we can match that up to the memos to compare what information the Presidents had at their disposal.

When these documents were disclosed by the New York Times, they sparked outrage when it became known that officials in the highest levels of government were lying to the American people. In reality, some of the reported documents seemed to have been cherry-picked for overly sensationalized headlines. The truth is much grayer than reported. When the papers are read in context, it becomes apparent that the documents contain different perspectives depending on the memo’s author. These documents are written by different people with different points of view and occasionally contradict each other. Reading the documents give better insight to understand why people in government acted the way they did. The situation in Vietnam didn’t happen because of an attack of a US Naval ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, but were the result of a larger series of events that spanned a couple decades.

Ho Chi Minh becomes Public Enemy #1

What happened from 1945 to 1950 that soured US intelligence on Ho Chi Minh? During World War II, the OSS and Viet Minh worked together to fight the Japanese occupation. The French, however, cooperated with the Japanese and were accused by Ho of being Japanese collaborators. Ho purportedly said he would give up his Communist affiliation to unite Vietnam under one government. I went through the Presidential internal documents of the McNamara study along with documents from the US Office of the Historian to find crucial moments when things went wrong.

---

On January 1, 1945, an aide asked Franklin Delano Roosevelt about his official position about Indochina, FDR replied, “I still do not want to get mixed up in any Indo-China decision. It is a matter for postwar…” ⁹

When Truman came to office later that year, it seemed he didn’t know (or care) about Vietnam. Any discussion about Vietnam in 1945 seemed to be in preparation for the French taking back their colony from Japanese occupation.

Some Vietnamese were circulating the idea that Vietnam would become a US possession. A Memorandum for the President issued in late April 1945 described the official policy of the US toward Vietnam as supporting French possessions, while keeping open the possibility of accepting voluntary territorial trusteeship of Vietnam. This policy seemed agreeable with the Chinese Government and the French Provisional Government at Yalta.¹⁰

William Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) reported in a Memo, marked “Secret”, to the Secretary of State on August 22, 1945:

“Annamite leaders in Kunming and representatives of the Central Liberation Committee recently from Hanoi, have expressed a desire to bring Imgin [Annam?] in Indo-China under the statue of an American protectorate, and are hoping that the US will intercede with the United Nations for the exclusion of the French, as well as Chinese, from the reoccupation of Indo-China.”¹¹

He also mentioned:

The Vietminh is a 100% Communist party

There were no messages mentioning Ho Chi Minh’s September 2, 1945 Declaration of Independence, but a few weeks later we see proof that some within the intelligence community debated if the Viet Minh had Communist ties.

This part makes reading these documents daunting when we see contradicting sources like when General Gallagher¹², reporting on January 28, 1946 on the status of Indo-China. He contradicts Donovan’s memo when he reports “…the Viet Minh should not be labelled as full fledged doctrinaire Communist”, stating they had communist leanings, but valued Nationalism over Communism. He seemed much more concerned about the Cao Dai group who he refers to as “definitely Communist”. ¹³¹⁴

In 1946, there seems to be no consensus about the Communist intentions of the Viet Minh. A narrative is starting to form where certain intelligence organizations are pushing the Communist aspect of the Viet Minh while others within the intelligence community remain undecided. Opinions were even divided within the OSS when it was later discovered that Archimedes Patti, the OSS agent in charge of Vietnamese intelligence, believed that Ho Chi Minh never wanted to become an enemy of the US.

There are only brief mentions of the Viet Minh and no mentions of Ho Chi Minh prior to February 27, 1946, nearly five months after the Declaration of Independence. It wasn’t until that date when the requests for US acknowledgement of Vietnamese independence were finally received by the White House.

Reports of that time seem to have little interest in the Viet Minh as seen in a report from March 7th that states: French conquest seems to be going well and citizens are pleased. A mere week later, reports of Viet Minh incidents around Saigon are increasing. There are several reports of Ho Chi Minh reaching out to the US for a peaceful settlement with the French. Ho seems to be losing control of his party when on June 5th, he relays the message “he would pay great attention to any suggestions” made by the US. The situation implodes as multiple attempts at peace talks break down.

The first mention of “Communist China” on September 17th shows an increased concern of a regional Communist threat.¹⁵ Later in the year, much of the White House correspondence is now focused on Ho’s communist connections and states concerns that he may be taking orders from Moscow.¹⁶

In late 1947, documents began to focus on Bao Dai’s return to Vietnamese rule. ¹⁷

On September 27, 1948, the US updated their long term objectives for Indochina;

1. eliminate communist influence and see a self-governing Nationalist state installed which will be friendly to the US

2. foster association of the people with Western powers, particularly France

3. raise the standard of living so that the peoples of Indochina will be

   less receptive to totalitarian influences

4. prevent undue Chinese influence and penetration into Indochina¹⁸

The official US policy recognized French sovereignty over Indochina but refused to assist France in exerting their authority over the Indochinese people.

These objectives signal a clear policy of Communist containment. By 1949, when the People’s Republic of China secured their hold of the mainland, the US became increasingly drawn into Vietnam to contain China. By May 3, 1950, Truman approved $10 million worth of military aid to the French in Indochina. A month later, the Korean war started.

By March 15, 1951, phrases such as “Red China” began to fill various State Department memorandums as intelligence officials grew increasingly worried. ¹⁹

On Dec. 23rd, Washington received a “Top Secret” communication that Chinese troops on the northern Vietnamese border increased from 170,000 to 290,000. Some say this is the moment Ho Chi Minh became pushed into a corner when it became clear the US would not support him, yet China offered recognition and aid. US weapons captured from Korea began being sent to the Viet Minh and Truman requested an immediate conference between the US, UK and French representatives. ²⁰

The divide between Ho Chi Minh and the US grew from a lack of intelligence. No one in higher offices seemed to know that Ho had been trying to work with US agents. The many messages he sent requesting US acknowledgment were never received in the early days. By the time they were received several months later, the US had formed an opinion of Ho as a communist agent rather than as a Vietnamese patriot who wanted his country free from colonial influence.

It seems that the inability of the West to take Ho seriously drove him to seek help from the Communists. When the West continued to ignore him after he declared independence, he found himself forced to join Vietnam’s ancient northern rival, China. His pattern remained the same, trying to work within the Western system, but repeated rejection forced him back to the Communists. This dynamic created a confirmation bias within US intelligence where everything began to be interpreted through a communist agent lens. This left Ho with only communist allies to help rebuild his country and pitted against the US.

US Support of Diem

In one particularly troublesome section, The Special American Commitment to Vietnam²¹, admits that the US created the state of Vietnam and it could not exist without US support.

Finally, in this review of factors that would affect policy-making on Vietnam, we must note that South Vietnam, (unlike any of the other countries in Southeast Asia) was essentially the creation of the United States.

Without U.S. support Diem almost certainly could not have consolidated his hold on the South during 1955 and 1956.

Without the threat of U.S. intervention, South Vietnam could not have refused to even discuss the elections called for in 1956 under the Geneva settlement without being immediately overrun by the Viet Minh armies.

Without U.S. aid in the years following, the Diem regime certainly, and an independent South Vietnam almost as certainly, could not have survived.

Further, from 1954 on there had been repeated statements of U.S. support for South Vietnam of a sort that we would not find in our dealings with other countries in this part of the world. It is true there was nothing unqualified about this support: it was always economic, and occasionally accompanied by statements suggesting that the Diem regime had incurred an obligation to undertake reforms in return for our assistance. But then, until 1961, there was no occasion to consider any assistance that went beyond economic support and the usual sort of military equipment and advice, and no suggestion that our continued support was in doubt.

Consequently, the U.S. had gradually developed a special commitment in South Vietnam. It was certainly not absolutely binding, even at the level of assistance existing at the start of 1961, much less at any higher level the South Vietnamese might come to need or request. But the commitment was there; to let it slip would be awkward, at the least. Whether it really had any impact on later decisions is hard to say. Given the other factors already discussed, it is not hard to believe that in its absence, U.S. policy might have followed exactly the same course it has followed. On the other hand, in the absence of a pre-existing special relation with South Vietnam, the U.S. in 1961 possibly would have at least considered a coalition government for Vietnam as well as Laos, and chosen to limit direct U.S. involvement to Thailand and other countries in the area historically independent of both Hanoi and Peking. But that is the mootest sort of question. For if there had been no pre-existing commitment to South Vietnam in 1961, there would not have been a South Vietnam to worry about anyway.

Diem didn’t work alone. There were two other brothers working together to provide government stabilization. His older brother, Bishop Ngô Đình Thục, stabilized Catholic support, although it can be debated whether or not this helped or hurt the Diem government. His younger brother, Ngu, provided the unofficial enforcement wing of the government. He performed the necessary thuggish activities that needed to be done, but could not be sanctioned by the government. Among these activities included the squashing of the Buddhist revolts.

In May 1963, South Vietnam's government banned the display of Buddhist flags on Vesak, angering Buddhists and sparking protests. The government's violent response, including the Huế shootings, further inflamed tensions. Buddhist leader Thích Trí Quang issued a five-point manifesto demanding religious equality and an end to government oppression. Despite some concessions, including compensation for victims' families, the government's refusal to acknowledge its role in the violence and its continued mistreatment of Buddhists led to escalating protests, including self-immolations and mass demonstrations.

Ngu raided the Buddhist pagodas on August 21, 1963, he used a paramilitary unit of ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) special forces that served as the Ngô family's de-facto private army as well as the Cần Lao party (the Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party that also served as the regime's de-facto secret police). This raid caused 30 Buddhists to be injured and 1,400 others to be arrested. Ngu had his private army dress in the uniforms of ARVN during the raids to shift blame away from himself. Initial US intelligence reports blamed the ARVN. VOA (Voice of America) began reporting these incorrect intelligence reports.

On August 23, General Đôn (Trần Văn Đôn, commander of the I-corps) went to a CAS (Close Air Support) officer to protest the VOA reports to set the record straight. Đôn said that placing the blame for the pagoda raids on the army compromised his ability to do his job. Đôn proposed a coup when he asked US representatives if they would be willing to accept a new government. Đôn and the US representative agreed that a signal of US acceptance of a new government would be a reduction in US support for Diem.

On August 24^th, the State Department sent the infamous Cable 243 that stated if Diem would not remove his brother Ngu from government, that the US would withdraw their support. Diem may not have been fully aware of the ramifications of his decision when he chose to support his brother. The VOA made a retraction to early reports on August 26th, but the damage had already been done when the US withdrew their support.²²

A few months later, Diem and his brother are both killed in a coup. Kennedy became quite upset knowing that he was partially responsible due to authorizing the infamous cable.

South Vietnamese leadership began spiraling downward as the US continued to support the ARVN. Many historians claim the army coup of Diem destroyed any hopes of a functioning South Vietnamese Republic. Ho Chi Minh is even reported to have said at the time: "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid." ²³

Ho Chi Minh: Asian Tito?

A section of the papers titled “Ho Chi Minh: Asian Tito?”²⁴ proposed a hypothesis that Ho Chi Minh could be communist, while being friendly to the US. The idea became known as Titoism, named after the Yugoslav Socialist leader who chose neutrality over strictly following the Soviet Union. This neutral position inspired the non-aligned movement that refused to be aligned with any major Cold War bloc. Vietnam later became a member of this organization in 1976.

It is true that Ho had been a Comintern agent, but that role was forced upon him due to his larger mission of freeing Vietnam from its French Colonial rulers. Ho did agree to work for the Soviets, but he also worked for the US with the OSS during WWII.

The proponents of this theory state that like Tito in Yugoslavia, some communists would work in the interest of their country over the larger Communist movement. Ho already demonstrated his intention for neutrality with his service to the OSS. Ho even mentioned in a memo that unlike the French Vichy government, who aided the Japanese during the war, the Viet Minh directly opposed the Japanese in service to the US war effort.

Ho found himself forced into a situation where he needed to deal with the French or Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese government. He preferred dealing with the French. In March of 1946 while still negotiating a peaceful transition of power with the French, Ho is quoted as saying to the pro-Chinese elements within the DRVN (Democratic Republic of Vietnam):

You fools! Don’t you realize what it means if the Chinese stay? Don't you remember your history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed one thousand years!

"The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying out. Nothing will be able to withstand world pressure for independence. They may stay for a while, but they will have to go because the white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never leave.

"As for me, I prefer to smell French shit for five years, rather than Chinese shit for the rest of my life.”

Bao Dai is reputed to have said that: “I saw Ho Chi Minh suffer. He was fighting a battle within himself. Ho had his own struggle. He realized communism was not best for his country, but it was too late. Ultimately, he could not overcome his allegiance to communism.”

During negotiations for a modus vivendi with the French in Paris in autumn, 1946, Ho appealed to the French to "save him from the extremists” within the Viet Minh by some meaningful concession to Vietnamese independence, and he told the US Ambassador that he was not a communist. He is reputed to have asserted at that time that Vietnam was not ready for communism, and described himself as a Marxist. In reply to a journalist's inquiry, Ho claimed that he could remain neutral, “like Switzerland” in the developing world power struggle between communism and the West.

Ho rapidly tried to secure US aid with his fledgling state including a series of eight communications from Ho to the US President between October 1945 and February 1946, stating to the OSS that he would be interested in US tutelage with the same status as the Philippines. “Ho's last direct communication with the U.S. was in September, 1946, when he visited the U.S. Ambassador in Paris to ask vaguely for U.S. assistance in obtaining independence for Vietnam within the French Union.”

Any hopes of neutrality died when the US failed to respond to any of the requests for aid, progressively forcing Ho back into the Communist influence of the Soviets and Chinese. It wasn’t until 1950, when Vietnam faced the threat of Mao’s army on the northern border that Ho gave up on peaceful acceptance from the US and finally openly re-embraced Communism.

Concluding thoughts

This Pentagon Papers seem daunting with a page count coming in at 7,000 pages. I believed reading the study would be a massive commitment of time and energy, but this is not the proper way to view the study. It is better to think of the study as an encyclopedia of anything you would want to know about the war in Vietnam. Like an encyclopedia, the study should be read ala-carte. This study is an absolute MUST for anyone with any interest in this era of history.

---

Notes:

1. Early Life of Hồ Chí Minh

2. The National Archives that contain all of the Pentagon Papers in *.pdf format.

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

3. What were the Pentagon Papers and Why did the US Government try to Censor them?

4. TIME Magazine, Pentagon Papers: The Secret War. June 28, 1971

https://web.archive.org/web/20131026125402/http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9606/28/index.shtml

5. Sherman Kent, McCone, Memorandum From the Board of National Estimates to the Director of Central Intelligence. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume I, Vietnam, 1964, Document 209. June 9, 1964

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v01/d209

Reading the memo provides more context to the Time article. This memo was written prior to the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” and went on to say that a loss would be catastrophic to the region, damaging the US position in the Far East and causing increased pressure to be put on US allies in the region. This part is left out of the articles.

6. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/us/pentagon-papers-vietnam-war.html

As the Pentagon Papers later showed, the Defense Department also revised its war aims: “70 percent to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat … 20 percent to keep South Vietnam (and then adjacent) territory from Chinese hands, 10 percent to permit the people of South Vietnam to enjoy a better, freer way of life.”

McNaughton, Paper Prepared by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Department of State, Vietnam – January to June 1965, Document 193, March 10, 1965

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v02/d193

7. Robert McNamara, Draft Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson. Department of State, Vietnam – June to December 1965, Document 189, November 3, 1965.

https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03/d189

8. Mike Gravel, The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decision Making on Vietnam. The Senator Gravel Edition. Beacon Press, 1971. ISBN 0-8070-0526-6

This edition of the Pentagon Papers included documents that were not included in the government version.

Ben Bagdikian of The Washington Post gave 4,100 of the Pentagon Papers to US Senator Mike Gravel, Alaska Democrat, to enter into the record of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds on June 29, 1971. It is unclear whether these documents were included in a different version of the Pentagon Papers, or if they were added later at some point along the way to clarify the Chinese containment narrative. Now these documents are conflated with the Pentagon Papers due to Gravel’s book, but it should be noted, they are not found in the official government edition.

9. The Pentagon Papers, Part-V-B-1, Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Roosevelt Administration. page 45

10. The Pentagon Papers, Part-V-B-2a, Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Truman Administration. Volume I: 1945 - 1949. page 6

11. Ibid. pages 46-48

12. Major General Phillip E. Gallagher (MC 395) - Columbus State University

Biography of Major-General Philip Edward Gallagher (1897 – 1976), USA

Gallagher is incorrectly labelled in the study as OSS while his official position was Liaison Officer For China Theater, Office of the Chief of Staff.

13. Ibid. pages 53-57

14. The Pentagon Papers, Part-V-B-2b, Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Truman Administration. Volume II: 1950 -1952. page 393

Caodaism incorporates multiple faiths into their own, combining elements of Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity into their religion. Gallagher’s statements become more confusing when the Cao Dai movement later became part of Bao Dai’s coalition after they denounced Communism.

15. The Pentagon Papers, Part-V-B-2a, Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Truman Administration. Volume I: 1945 - 1949. page 80

16. Ibid. page 92

17. Ibid. pages 114, 118, 121, 134…

18. Ibid. pages 143-49

19. The Pentagon Papers, Part-V-B-2b, Justification of the War. Internal Documents. The Truman Administration. Volume II: 1950 -1952. pages 421, 462, 465, 468, 520, 535

20. Ibid. pages 460-61

21. The Pentagon Papers, Part-IV-B-1, Kennedy Program in Commitments, chapter 1, subsection II, part 5. The Special American Commitment to Vietnam: 1961. pages 6-7

22. The Pentagon Papers, Part-IV-B-5, Evolution of the War, The Overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem, May-November 1963, summary timeline pages xiii-xv

23. Mark Moyar. Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965. Cambridge University Press, August 28, 2006. page 286. ISBN 9781139459211.

24. The Pentagon Papers, Part-II-Section C, Ho Chi Minh: Asian Tito?