Vietnam: The Battle for Historical Perspective: What the Ken Burns PBS Series Did Not Tell You

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

The U.S. involvement in the war began in a counterinsurgency role, but soon after the disastrous overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, foolishly encouraged by the Kennedy Administration in November 1963, we were involved in trying to hurl back major North Vietnamese Army (NVA) offensives. The removal and subsequent murder of Diem by South Vietnamese coup leaders resulted in over two years of political and military instability in South Vietnam. 

Both President Johnson and President Nixon called this orchestrated regime change one of the biggest mistakes of the war. North Vietnamese leaders could hardly believe their good fortune and responded with a massive escalation of NVA troops, weapons, and supplies. The U.S. responded with steadily increasing troop levels, but President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara pursued a policy of timid “graduated response” and refused the requests of the Pacific Area Commander, Admiral Sharp, and the Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff to bring the full weight of U.S. Air and Sea power against North Vietnamese strategic targets. Starting with Ia Drang in 1965 and ending with the heavily mechanized NVA Easter offensive in 1972, the conflict became a more conventional war, but with the U.S. allowing enemy sanctuaries in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam and holding back from its potential to devastate strategic targets in North Vietnam. Admiral Sharp called the latter policy “powder puff” warfare in a U.S. Senate hearing.

More@ The Tribune