LEADERSHIP LIBRARY

IN BRIEF

This is a fascinating description of the decision-making processes in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that led to escalation of the war in Vietnam. The notes are less about the war and more about the group dynamics that led to poor strategy formulation, decision-making, and execution.

Key Concepts

The failure to achieve a shared logic for the war hampered strategic decision-making

“Disagreements among the Chiefs often reflected differences in their philosophies of war. LeMay, for example, felt that the United States should respond to security threats with massive retaliation from the air, whereas Shoup was against using military force at all unless U.S. vital interests were at stake. Shoup based his philosophy on practical experience; to him the “lesson” of Korea was that the United States was not adept at fighting protracted limited wars.” (Location 914)

It’s possible to quantify a problem and nonetheless be looking at the wrong criteria

“Despite MACV’s protest that it was “impossible to measure progress in any meaningful way on a weekly basis,” McNamara insisted on ‘Weekly Headway Reports’ that included “measurable criteria” to help chart the progress of the war. The very title of the report revealed his eagerness to demonstrate the South’s improvement under his program.” (Location 1220)

Without respectful dissent, many parts of quality problem-solving are left out

“Above all President Johnson needed reassurance. He wanted advisers who would tell him what he wanted to hear, who would find solutions even if there were none to be found. Bearers of bad news or those who expressed views that ran counter to his priorities would hold little sway.” (Location 1280)

“The advisers’ desire to demonstrate unity inspired them to coordinate their positions before discussing them with Johnson.” (Location 1818)

“Johnson’s other advisers considered Humphrey’s treatment an object lesson. Ball later recalled that “faced with a unanimous view” among the president’s top advisers, he “saw no option but to go along.” Although Ball would attempt to postpone and minimize the scope and intensity of the bombing, he would no longer question the general direction of the policy or the assumptions that underlay it. He and others had come to the paradoxical conclusion that to protect their influence with the president, they had to spare him their most deeply held doubts. If they voiced their reservations, they would join Humphrey in exile.” (Location 4781)

Decision-making processes will be biased if their inputs or results are curtailed upfront

“Sullivan informed the JCS that the president had tasked him with considering options ranging from withdrawal to large-scale American intervention in the war. Subsequent comments in the meeting indicated, however, that Sullivan would genuinely explore only those options that included sharply limited military actions against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.” (Location 1394)

The lack of first-principles thinking—here about the fundamental nature of war—meant that decisions that were reasonable on their face nonetheless added up to failure 

“Nineteenth-century military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz observed that ‘the first duty and the right of the art of war is to keep policy from demanding things that go against the nature of war, to prevent the possibility that out of ignorance of the way the instrument works, policy might misuse it.’ Even though the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the concept of graduated pressure was inconsistent with the ‘nature of war,’ they planned for the war within the parameters of that concept.” (Location 3102)

Decentralized command is necessary to making quality, efficient decisions

“The belief that they could maintain close control from Washington of the actions of American forces engaged in combat in Vietnam carried over to an assumption that they could anticipate, even script, the enemy’s response to military operations.” (Location 3243)

“Washington retained the authority to cancel missions due to poor weather, and the JCS called off several planned strikes between February 22 and March 2. Westmoreland told Wheeler that this form of control from Washington was absurd, considering that the weather changed faster than people in Vietnam could inform Washington of those changes. Last-minute orders and counterorders from Washington continued to confound planning staffs and exhaust pilots, who had to remain on almost constant alert.” (Location 4616)

Assuming that the enemy’s decision-making will be “rational” is irrational 

“The attorneys, managers, and analysts failed to consider that Hanoi’s commitment to revolutionary war made losses that seemed unconscionable to American white-collar professionals of little consequence to Ho’s government.” (Location 3279)

 Quotables

“Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay recalled that McNamara’s Whiz Kids ‘were the most egotistical people that I ever saw in my life. They had no faith in the military; they had no respect for the military at all. They felt that the Harvard Business School method of solving problems would solve any problem in the world…. They were better than all the rest of us; otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten their superior education, as they saw it.’” (Location 444)

“Ho, however, had told a French visitor at the outset of the conflict, ‘You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.’” (Location 747)

“White House special assistant Forrestal recalled: ‘There was a bad thing in this period. The government was extremely scared of itself. There was tremendous nervousness that if you expressed an opinion it might somehow leak out… and the president would be furious and everyone’s head would be cut off…. It inhibited an exchange of information and prevented the president himself from getting a lot of the facts that he should have had.’” (Location 1813)

“General Johnson likened conferring with McNamara to a ‘mating dance of the turkeys,’ in which participants ‘went through certain set procedures’ but ‘solved no problems.’” (Location 1881)

“Despite LBJ’s retrospective assertion that his government may have been wrong but was not divided, his government was, as historian George Herring has observed, ‘both wrong and divided.’” (Location 3109)

“Lieutenant General Goodpaster protested to Secretary McNamara in the fall of 1964, ‘Sir, you are trying to program the enemy and that is one thing we must never try to do. We can’t do his thinking for him.’ Goodpaster’s words fell on deaf ears.” (Location 3282)

“Ball warned that ‘once on the tiger’s back, we cannot be sure of picking the place to dismount.’” (Location 3345)

“George Ball observed that the committee had developed options on the ‘Goldilocks principle.’ Option A was ‘too soft,’ B was ‘too hard, and C was ‘just right.’” (Location 3640)

“What [the military officer] isn’t taught is how to cope with the accommodation required in the political process. There must be clearer and more rigid standards for the man in uniform whose responsibility ends in human life in contrast to standards for the man in civilian clothes who does not face the specter of death in his mind as he deliberates on actions that might be taken.” –GEN. HAROLD K. JOHNSON, 19731 (Location 5945)

“Graduated pressure was fundamentally flawed in other ways. The strategy ignored the uncertainty of war and the unpredictable psychology of an activity that involves killing, death, and destruction. ...Human sacrifices in war evoke strong emotions, creating a dynamic that defies systems analysis quantification.” (Location 6462)

“The result was that the JCS and McNamara became fixated on the means rather than on the ends, and on the manner in which the war was conducted instead of a military strategy that could connect military actions to achievable policy goals.” (Location 6570)

“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or on the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C., even before Americans assumed sole responsibility for the fighting in 1965 and before they realized the country was at war; indeed, even before the first American units were deployed. The disaster in Vietnam was not the result of impersonal forces but a uniquely human failure, the responsibility for which was shared by President Johnson and his principal military and civilian advisers. The failings were many and reinforcing: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and, above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people.” (Location 6588)