In 1994, Henry Kissinger published the book Diplomacy. He was a renowned scholar and diplomat who served as the United States National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. His book provides an extensive sweep of the history of foreign affairs and the art of diplomacy, with a particular focus on the 20th century and the Western World. Kissinger, known for his alignment with the realist school of international relations, inquires into the concepts of the balance of power, raison d’État, and Realpolitik across different eras.
His work has been widely praised for its scope and intricate detail. Yet, it has also faced criticism for its focus on individuals over structural forces, and for presenting a reductive view of history. Also, critics have also pointed out that the book focuses excessively on Kissinger’s individual role in events, potentially overstating his impact. In any case, his ideas are worthy of consideration.
This article presents a summary of Kissinger’s ideas in the twenty-sixth chapter of his book, called “Vietnam: On the Road to Despair; Kennedy and Johnson”.
You can find all available summaries of this book, or you can read the summary from the previous chapter of the book, by clicking these links.
John F. Kennedy, the third consecutive president to manage the Indochina conflict, inherited established policy premises. He, like Truman and Eisenhower before him, viewed Vietnam as critical to America’s geopolitical interests and believed preventing a communist victory there was essential. The communist leadership in Hanoi was seen as a surrogate of the Kremlin, and defending South Vietnam was deemed vital for global containment.
Kennedy’s approach to Vietnam largely continued Eisenhower’s policies but with notable differences. Eisenhower saw the conflict as a conventional war between North and South Vietnam. The Kennedy administration, however, perceived the Vietcong attacks as a quasi-civil war involving guerrilla warfare. Their strategy focused on building South Vietnam’s social, political, economic, and military capacities to combat the guerrillas without endangering American lives.
Kennedy’s team viewed the military threat in apocalyptic terms, different from Eisenhower’s perspective of conventional warfare. They believed that a nuclear stalemate existed between the US and the Soviet Union, making general war unthinkable. They focused on guerrilla warfare as the future of conflicts and saw resisting it as crucial to America’s ability to contain communism.
On January 6, 1961, Khrushchev declared support for “wars of national liberation,” which Kennedy’s administration interpreted as a declaration of war against America’s new emphasis on relations with the developing world. This speech, seen later as aimed at Beijing, was treated by Kennedy as evidence of Soviet and Chinese ambitions for world domination. This misinterpretation would recur in 1965 during the Johnson administration, with China being misread as potentially intervening in Hanoi, despite Chinese signals of non-involvement in communist wars of liberation.
The Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ misinterpretations of communist statements transformed Indochina from one Cold War battle into a decisive confrontation. Kennedy, feeling the need to restore credibility after being challenged by Khrushchev at the Vienna Summit, saw Southeast Asia as crucial for demonstrating American power, choosing Vietnam as the place to make this stand.
Kennedy’s entry into Vietnam resembled a classical tragedy, with his administration being drawn into the conflict by seemingly random events, such as the crisis in Laos. Laos, a peaceful nation bordered by Vietnam and Thailand, became embroiled in the conflict due to North Vietnam’s guerrilla war in South Vietnam. Instead of risking a direct confrontation across the 17th Parallel, Hanoi used Laos and Cambodia for infiltration, finding it less likely to provoke international intervention.
Despite the Geneva Accords of 1954 guaranteeing the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia, Hanoi effectively annexed parts of Laos and established bases there and in Cambodia. This move was criticized not as an expansion of the war by Hanoi but as an American and South Vietnamese effort to disrupt the infiltration network on neutral soil.
The North Vietnamese utilized Laos’ panhandle, providing access routes under a jungle canopy along the South Vietnam border. Over 6,000 North Vietnamese troops entered Laos in 1959 to support the communist Pathet Lao. Eisenhower had advised Kennedy that defending South Vietnam should begin in Laos. Kennedy initially echoed Eisenhower’s stance but shifted to negotiations, hoping to maintain Laotian neutrality.
In April 1961, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy opted for negotiations over intervention, leading to a year-long stall in the talks as North Vietnam developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In May 1962, Kennedy’s deployment of Marines to Thailand hastened the negotiations’ conclusion, resulting in the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Laos, except for North Vietnamese forces, which remained covertly.
Eisenhower’s assessment proved correct: Laos was a better place to defend Indochina than Vietnam. North Vietnamese could not have waged guerrilla war in Laos, and America could have fought a conventional war there, potentially deterring Hanoi. However, strategic analysis was overshadowed by ideological considerations, and American leaders decided to defend South Vietnam, even though this decision made military defense challenging. With the supply routes through Laos open and Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk allowing communist bases along the South Vietnam border, defending South Vietnam became a near-impossible task. The situation created a paradox: leaving Cambodian bases undisturbed allowed North Vietnamese attacks; attacking them led to accusations of aggression against a neutral country.
Kennedy’s reluctance to risk war in Laos, a little-known country near China, was understandable, especially amidst the Berlin crisis. Abandoning Indochina was never an option for him. Withdrawal would have meant conceding defeat in a crucial test of America’s ability to combat communist guerrilla warfare, especially after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Kennedy believed that with American help, the South Vietnamese military could defeat the communist guerrillas, unaware that the U.S. was heading into a quagmire.
Kennedy had long argued that force alone couldn’t stop communism; allies needed a political foundation. In 1951, he emphasized building strong local non-communist sentiments rather than relying solely on military force. By 1956, he supported aiding South Vietnam, viewing it as America’s responsibility. He believed the conflict was more political and moral than military, advocating for a superior political, economic, and social revolution to counter communism. America’s credibility was at stake, and failure would damage its prestige in Asia.
Kennedy’s approach birthed the concept of “nation-building,” aiming to strengthen South Vietnam to resist communists independently. Emphasizing civic action and reform, he framed the challenge as one of American prestige rather than security. However, this strategy required a long-term commitment that conflicted with the immediate need to prevent a guerrilla victory. Reform in South Vietnam would take decades, unlike the post-World War II efforts in established European countries. America’s goal of creating a stable democracy in South Vietnam couldn’t be achieved quickly enough to counter the guerrilla threat, leading to a strategic dilemma.
When Kennedy took office, the guerrilla war in South Vietnam hindered the Ngo Dinh Diem government’s consolidation without yet threatening its survival. This situation misled the Kennedy Administration into believing a small additional effort could secure victory. However, the lull in guerrilla activity was temporary, due to Hanoi’s focus on Laos. Once new supply routes through Laos were established, guerrilla activity in South Vietnam escalated, exacerbating America’s challenges.
In May 1961, Vice President Johnson was sent to Saigon to assess the situation, signaling a pre-decided commitment. Johnson’s trip, despite its superficial purpose, was meant to stake American prestige and justify existing decisions. Before the mission, Kennedy had warned Senator Fulbright about potential troop deployments to Vietnam and Thailand. Fulbright’s support was conditional on local requests for assistance, reflecting a concern for America’s legal and moral stance.
Concurrent with Johnson’s departure, a National Security Council directive established preventing communist domination in South Vietnam as a national objective. The strategy aimed to create a viable democratic society through comprehensive actions, transitioning from containment to nation-building. Johnson reported that the main threat in Indochina was not communism but hunger, ignorance, poverty, and disease. He saw Diem as admirable but disconnected from his people, advocating for either backing Diem or withdrawing.
The administration, preoccupied with the Berlin crisis, delayed focusing on Vietnam until late 1961, by which time the security situation had worsened. General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow were sent to Vietnam to formulate a policy. They recommended a significant increase in American advisory roles and the deployment of an 8,000-man military logistics force, ostensibly for flood control but equipped for combat.
This recommendation was a compromise between advisors advocating limited U.S. involvement and those favoring immediate combat troop deployment. The latter underestimated the problem’s scale. Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense William Bundy estimated a 70 percent chance of success with 40,000 troops but warned of a potential outcome like France’s defeat in 1954. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff projected that victory would require 205,000 troops if Hanoi and Beijing intervened. Ultimately, the U.S. committed more than twice that number against Hanoi alone.
Bureaucratic compromise often hinges on the hope that the problem will resolve itself, but this was not realistic for Vietnam. Estimates suggested that 40,000 troops were needed to maintain a stalemate, and 205,000 for victory. Kennedy’s commitment of 8,000 troops was clearly insufficient, setting the stage for further escalation. On November 14, 1961, Kennedy stressed that America’s response to communist aggression would be closely watched globally, rejecting proposals for negotiation which he saw as tantamount to abandonment.
If negotiations were off the table and reinforcement seemed inevitable, only massive reinforcement could deter Hanoi, but America avoided recognizing that the real choices were total commitment or withdrawal. The strategy of gradual escalation, designed to manage aggression without excessive force, inadvertently invited open-ended escalation. Each limited commitment risked being seen as a lack of resolve, encouraging the adversary to push further.
Historical insights suggested that Hanoi’s leaders were unlikely to be deterred by American strategies. They were seasoned veterans with a singular focus on establishing a united, communist Vietnam and expelling foreign influence. They viewed American reforms with contempt, having dedicated their lives to revolutionary war. The American objective, as described by Roger Hilsman, was to reduce the Vietcong to mere outlaws, but history offered no precedent for such an outcome. In Malaya, it had taken the British and Malayans years to defeat a much smaller and less supported guerrilla force.
The number of American troops in Vietnam grew from about 900 when Kennedy took office to over 16,000 by the end of 1963, with the death toll rising correspondingly. Despite this escalation, the military situation showed little improvement. As America’s military role expanded, so did its emphasis on political reform, which paradoxically Americanized the war further. Kennedy believed that overcoming various forms of subversion required political and social reform to enable potential victims to defend themselves.
This insistence on simultaneous political reform and military victory created a vicious cycle. The guerrillas could control the intensity of warfare, affecting security levels independently of reform. Increased insecurity led to a more heavy-handed Saigon government, further complicating Washington’s efforts. Diem’s government, caught between Hanoi’s ideologues and Washington’s idealists, became rigid and ultimately ineffective.
Even a leader less entrenched in traditional values than Diem would struggle to build a pluralistic democracy amid guerrilla warfare and a fragmented society. The Kennedy Administration’s Wilsonian assumptions underestimated the challenges of transplanting American institutions to Vietnam. Every new administration tied increased aid to political reform, but leaders like Diem resisted what they saw as tutelage. By the end of 1962, even Senator Mansfield acknowledged that the Diem government was drifting further from responsible governance.
Relations between the Kennedy Administration and Diem soured throughout 1963, with media criticism focusing not on American objectives but on the feasibility of achieving them with Diem. The final break came over a conflict between South Vietnamese Buddhists and Diem, whose government had banned the flying of flags by sects, leading to violent confrontations. This issue highlighted deeper problems of power and governance rather than democracy per se. Washington’s pressure on Diem to make concessions and remove his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, culminated in a breakdown of trust.
On August 24, 1963, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was instructed to demand Nhu’s removal and warn Diem that his own survival might be at risk. The South Vietnamese military interpreted this as a signal that Diem needed to be overthrown. Kennedy and McNamara’s public demands reinforced this message. Eventually, the generals acted, overthrowing and killing Diem and Nhu on November 1, 1963.
Diem’s overthrow solidified America’s involvement in Vietnam. Revolutionary wars hinge on governmental legitimacy, and by undermining Diem, America handed a significant victory to Hanoi. The coup dismantled existing authority structures, requiring a rebuild from the ground up. Historically, extensive eradication of authority necessitates reliance on force to reestablish control, as legitimacy involves acceptance without compulsion. With Diem’s removal, the possibility of America avoiding direct military involvement vanished, as the coup was justified to prosecute the war more effectively.
Rather than unifying the people, the coup led to political fragmentation. The New York Times optimistically viewed it as a chance to repel communism in Southeast Asia, but it resulted in chaos. Without a consensus on underlying values, the coup destroyed a decade’s worth of structure, leaving a power vacuum filled by inexperienced generals. In 1964 alone, there were seven changes of government, all resulting from coups and none establishing democracy. Diem’s successors, lacking his nationalist prestige, had no choice but to rely on American support. The question became not how to support a South Vietnamese regime, but finding one willing to support America’s continued struggle against the communists.
In December 1963, Hanoi seized the opportunity created by Diem’s overthrow, with the Communist Party Central Committee deciding to escalate their efforts in South Vietnam. Guerrilla units were to be strengthened, infiltration accelerated, and North Vietnamese regular units introduced. This marked a significant shift, with the 325th North Vietnamese division moving into the South, and by the Tet Offensive of 1968, the majority of infiltrators were from the North. Both sides committed fully to the conflict.
Following Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson saw the intervention of North Vietnamese units as overt aggression. Unlike Hanoi, which had a clear strategy, Washington only had competing theories. By December 1963, McNamara reported a deteriorating security situation in South Vietnam, leaving America with the stark choice of either dramatic military escalation or the collapse of South Vietnam. Johnson, like his predecessor, struggled with the implications of supporting an undemocratic ally while fearing the consequences of abandoning the effort.
The ideal moment for America to withdraw from Vietnam with manageable costs would have been around Diem’s overthrow. Kennedy’s administration rightly assessed that they couldn’t win with Diem, while Johnson’s administration mistakenly believed they could succeed with his successors. In hindsight, America could have allowed Diem to fall due to his own inadequacies or by not obstructing his potential negotiations with Hanoi, though Kennedy had correctly predicted that such negotiations would lead to a communist takeover.
There are claims that Kennedy intended to withdraw American forces after the 1964 election, but this is disputed. Regardless, each reinforcement increased the stakes, making both commitment and withdrawal more costly. Kennedy’s assassination further complicated extrication, as Johnson had to continue a policy inherited from a respected predecessor without any advisers recommending disengagement, except George Ball. Johnson, lacking confidence in foreign policy, would have struggled to reverse course.
Johnson might have benefited from analyzing whether the goals in Vietnam were achievable and if the premises behind these commitments were correct. However, the sophisticated aides inherited from Kennedy were unanimously in favor of trying to win in Vietnam. America’s initial involvement was driven by the belief that losing Vietnam would destabilize noncommunist Asia and lead Japan to accommodate communism, a stance based on geopolitical rather than ideological reasoning. Yet, successive administrations aimed to achieve both military victory and democratization, which proved challenging.
In Vietnam, America faced limits to its beliefs, struggling to reconcile power and principle. Cutting losses was hard due to America’s historical reluctance to accept such lessons. The Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, where a presumed North Vietnamese attack on the destroyer Maddox led to retaliatory strikes, exemplified this difficulty. The subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution justified further military actions. Although the resolution wasn’t based on complete facts, it didn’t fundamentally alter America’s commitment to ground combat.
Johnson’s tactics in achieving the Tonkin Resolution were similar to Roosevelt’s actions before World War II. Both presidents sought to define intolerable scenarios—German victory in the 1940s and the takeover of Indochina in the 1960s—prepared to respond militarily if necessary. However, the true issue with Vietnam was not the method of entry but the lack of a thorough assessment of costs and potential outcomes.
A nation should not commit half a million troops or stake its standing without clear political goals and realistic strategies. Washington failed to ask whether simultaneous democratization and military victory were possible and whether the benefits justified the costs. The leaders who committed to Vietnam assumed affirmative answers without sufficient scrutiny.
Conducting a successful guerrilla war requires blending military and political strategies, a challenge for American military leaders. Throughout the Vietnam War, objectives often outstripped means, and Washington was unwilling to take the necessary risks. The lesson from the Korean War—that protracted, inconclusive wars undermine domestic consensus—was overlooked. Instead, the Korean War’s outcome was misinterpreted as successful containment. Similarly, in Vietnam, the goal was to demonstrate to North Vietnam that they couldn’t take over South Vietnam without provoking Chinese intervention, yet this approach ignored the enemy’s resolve and equated compromise with defeat.
In guerrilla warfare, two strategies could potentially succeed. The first, defensive in nature, aims to deprive the adversary of control over the population by ensuring near-total security for enough people, making the remaining guerrilla influence politically insignificant. General Maxwell Taylor proposed such a strategy, suggesting American-protected enclaves while the South Vietnamese army prevented the formation of a solid communist zone. The second strategy involves targeting guerrilla strongholds, such as supply depots and sanctuaries, including interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail and blockading North Vietnamese and Cambodian ports. This could have led to a rapid war of attrition, forcing a negotiated outcome.
The adopted strategy—attempting 100 percent security across Vietnam and conducting search-and-destroy operations—was ineffective. The enemy’s supply lines and sanctuaries were beyond Vietnam’s borders, and they had an unwavering will. In 1966, North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong told The New York Times that the U.S., despite its superior military strength, would eventually lose because more Vietnamese than Americans were willing to die for their country, and they would fight indefinitely.
Johnson refused to expand the war, clinging to the belief that the four Indochinese states were separate, despite the communists treating them as a single theater for two decades. Concerned about Chinese intervention and seeking détente with the Soviet Union, Johnson opted for halfway measures, undermining America’s international position without achieving its goals. Efforts to inflict pain on North Vietnam through air operations were ineffective due to the rudimentary and resilient nature of its transportation system. Stalemate favored Hanoi, especially as it caused heavy American casualties and growing domestic opposition to the war.
Washington aimed to prove that guerrilla warfare wouldn’t succeed, failing to grasp how Hanoi calculated costs and benefits. Johnson sought to demonstrate moderation and offer compromise, which only encouraged Hanoi to persist. Johnson explained America’s goals as not to destroy North Vietnam or change its government but to stop their aggression and prove that guerrilla warfare wouldn’t succeed. He wanted the communist leaders to realize that military victory was impossible and to opt for peace, but these appeals fell on deaf ears.
Hanoi’s leaders, dedicated to victory and having endured immense suffering for their cause, were impervious to American reassurances. They had fought against France and now the U.S. for a unified, communist Vietnam. The concept of leaving neighbors alone was alien to them. Americans kept proposing democratic outcomes, but Hanoi, having established a rigorous dictatorship, had no interest in being just one political party among many. They aimed to win by not losing, and American strategy, focused on stalemate, ensured they wouldn’t lose. Offers of reconstruction aid were ignored; Hanoi wanted victory, not development assistance.
As American public opinion turned against the war, critics blamed Johnson for the diplomatic stalemate. This criticism overlooked Johnson’s eagerness to negotiate, which was so evident that it became counterproductive, encouraging Hanoi to delay and extract more concessions. Johnson’s numerous bombing pauses demonstrated America’s willingness to pay a price to initiate talks, incentivizing Hanoi to raise that price.
My involvement with Vietnam became significant through my work with the Johnson Administration, which was eager to negotiate while Hanoi skillfully exploited this eagerness. Initially, my focus was on Europe and nuclear strategy, but after visiting Vietnam in 1965 and 1966 as a consultant on pacification to Ambassador Lodge, I realized the prevailing strategy couldn’t win the war. I believed negotiations with Hanoi were necessary, though I lacked specific ideas on what those negotiations should entail.
In 1967, at a Pugwash Conference on nuclear disarmament, Raymond Aubrac and Herbert Marcovich, who had connections with Ho Chi Minh, proposed visiting Hanoi to advocate for negotiations. With support from Bundy and McNamara, but traveling in a private capacity, Aubrac and Marcovich met Ho Chi Minh, who hinted at willingness to negotiate if America stopped bombing North Vietnam. Messages between Washington and Hanoi were exchanged indirectly through Aubrac and Marcovich, as Hanoi refused direct communication without a bombing halt.
In a meeting with Johnson and his advisers, I witnessed the development of the San Antonio Formula, which Johnson presented on September 29, 1967. It proposed halting all aerial and naval bombardment of North Vietnam in exchange for productive discussions, assuming Hanoi wouldn’t exploit the bombing cessation. The ambiguous terms of the offer—without clear definitions of “productive” or “advantage”—allowed Hanoi to continue its strategies without major concessions. Hanoi refused the offer, using it to protect its upcoming military offensive.
The Tet Offensive soon followed, and the domestic opposition to the war grew. Unlike the Korea War, where the disagreement was about the measures required to succeed, Vietnam’s critics wanted to reduce or abandon the effort entirely. As the domestic consensus eroded, Hanoi realized that a combination of stalemated diplomacy and military pressure would favor them, leading to calls for de-escalation or withdrawal in the U.S.
Criticism of Vietnam policy began with practical concerns about the war’s feasibility and costs. Walter Lippmann, in March 1968, argued that America’s limitless war aims made victory impossible with limited means. Senator Fulbright, who had earlier supported firm action in Vietnam, later criticized America’s overreach as “the arrogance of power.” The shift in Fulbright’s stance, from advocating for stronger efforts in 1964 to condemning the war in 1966, reflected a broader change in perception.
Initially, critics focused on the practical aspects of the war being unwinnable and overly costly. However, influenced by American idealism, they extended their critique to moral grounds, arguing there was little moral difference between Hanoi and Saigon, undermining the ideological justification for the war. This shift led to an indictment of America’s entire foreign policy and, eventually, a critique of American society itself.
After World War II, America typically found its moral values aligned with strategic goals. Decisions could be justified as both promoting democracy and resisting aggression. South Vietnam, however, wasn’t a democracy. Successive regimes felt beleaguered, and the generals in charge were reluctant to test their popularity through elections. Arguments that Saigon’s rulers were less repressive than Hanoi’s were often dismissed. America’s moral absolutism, nurtured by a belief in the clear distinction between good and evil, made it hard to accept moral relativism.
Critics increasingly demanded that Saigon meet full democratic standards, which they knew were impossible. As time passed, the Domino Theory, central to the defense of Vietnam, was ridiculed and abandoned. Yale Professor Richard Renfield argued that the two sides in the Vietnam conflict were morally equivalent, rendering the war senseless. He suggested that America was supporting conservative forces against social change rather than resisting aggression.
Television, reaching millions, played a significant role in shaping public opinion. Visual images provided a running commentary that highlighted the drama and atrocities of war. Unlike print journalists, TV anchors became influential political figures, reaching vast audiences regularly. This new medium, combined with mounting casualties, shifted critiques of American foreign policy from effectiveness to necessity, questioning America’s global role and moral standing.
Criticism from intellectuals and universities, historically defenders of American idealism, was particularly poignant. Kennedy’s assassination, followed by antiwar protests from their students, disillusioned many intellectual leaders. Professors, pressured by their students, increasingly supported unilateral withdrawal.
The radical wing of the Vietnam protest movement ridiculed anticommunism, deeming it outdated. Figures like Staughton Lynd and Tom Hayden refused to be anti-communist, viewing the term as a justification for a crude foreign policy. Hans Morgenthau, a leading philosopher of national interest, criticized America’s involvement in Vietnam as fundamentally immoral.
For leaders raised on Cold War certainties, these critiques were shocking. Lyndon Johnson, a principal architect of postwar consensus, struggled to communicate with intellectual critics. Initially supportive figures like David Halberstam argued for significant American commitment to Vietnam but later became harsh critics.
Johnson’s appeals for unconditional negotiations were consistently rejected by Hanoi, leading him to progressively soften his stance. He moved from demanding North Vietnamese withdrawal to the San Antonio Formula, which proposed halting bombing before negotiations. Eventually, he conceded to including the National Liberation Front in negotiations. These moves were dismissed by Hanoi as inadequate and by U.S. critics as insincere, polarizing the debate between victory and withdrawal.
Moderate critics, including myself, urged for a negotiated compromise, but Hanoi’s implacability made this impossible. The North Vietnamese would only compromise if they felt too weak to win, which meant after being defeated. America’s moderation could only be shown after the war, not during it. Hanoi understood that the war’s outcome would be determined by ground forces, not negotiations.
In 1968, Hanoi planned to negotiate before the American presidential election to commit both political parties to a negotiated outcome. They aimed to shift the military balance with the Tet Offensive. On January 30, during the lunar new year truce, they launched attacks on thirty South Vietnamese provincial capitals, achieving total surprise and capturing key targets in Saigon, including the U.S. embassy grounds and General Westmoreland’s headquarters. Hue fell to the communists and was held for twenty-five days.
Although the Tet Offensive was a military defeat for the communists, as it forced them into open combat and resulted in significant casualties, it became a psychological victory. If American leaders had increased pressure on the North Vietnamese forces after Tet, Johnson might have secured the unconditional negotiations he sought. However, public opinion polls still supported the war effort, but the Establishment figures, who had previously backed intervention, now advised ending escalation and beginning the war’s liquidation.
On February 27, 1968, Walter Cronkite’s prediction of a stalemate shook the White House, suggesting that the war would end in either negotiations or terrible escalation. This view, echoed by the media and political leaders, questioned the feasibility of achieving victory without destroying Vietnam.
Johnson buckled under the pressure, announcing a unilateral partial bombing halt and indicating no further significant reinforcements would be sent to Vietnam. He also announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. This decision, intended to facilitate negotiations, left the resolution of the conflict to his successor. Without contesting the election on Vietnam, Johnson’s simultaneous de-escalation, renunciation of candidacy, and offer for negotiations combined to disadvantage his position. Hanoi, having secured a bombing halt, faced only procedural talks and restored its infrastructure, setting the stage for continued conflict with Johnson’s successor.
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