Escalation Of Vietnam Essay, Research Paper

Mr. President:

It is my observation that at this point in your disposal you are basking considerable latitude with the American populace. Your overpowering triumph in the recent election has illustrated your popularity. The platform on which you ran promised the American populace that our male childs would non be sent to decease in Vietnam. If you are traveling to move on your word, and stop the war in Vietnam, the clip is now.

It is besides my observation that your top Plutos holding been overpowering you with advice in the opposite way. Your beloved Robert McNamara, whose sentiment you value profoundly, has made this war his personal undertaking. He is vouching that the war can be won within two and a half old ages. He has stated that there is no hazard of a calamity. He and General Westmoreland experience confident that the war can be won. However, they have continually been inquiring for more and more military personnels since mid-1964. You have already agreed to direct more Mariness and authorise violative operations. If there is no bound set on the figure of military personnels, it becomes easier and easier to maintain directing them.

What is our clear military aim? Make our military leaders have a strategic program for triumph? Again in June, General Westmoreland has asked for more military personnels. After McNamara was sent in July to measure the state of affairs in Saigon, he returned with the petition to raise the American presence from 75,000 to 175,000 with a possible 100,000 more to follow. Does this sound like the promises you have made to the American populace? The ends of your disposal, the Great Society, will hold to be halted and possibly ne’er completed should you lose the support of the populace and Congress.

In your recent meeting on July 21st with your top Plutos, it is apparent that you feel you are go oning down the right way towards escalation. George Bundy has become hawkish in his stance, and is pressing you to intensify and non to be deterred by the hazard of a land war with China. Dean Rusk is eventually encompassing the bombardment and the despatch of military personnels, emphasizing the importance of making whatever was needed? to throw back Hanoi-Viet Cong aggression without a major war if possible. ? McNamara, to whom fell the duty for supervising this new American struggle seems of two heads. He has bemoaned the heavy military accent on the operation and even expressed an involvement in seting the Vietnam issue before an international forum for treatment. But now, he has become impatient for acquiring down to the inside informations of winning and feels that abandoning Vietnam would bring forth? a complete displacement in the universe balance of power? and would hold bad domestic reverberations, including? a black political battle? and even an eroding of political freedom. On the other manus, salvaging Vietnam would, he argued, have a scope of benefits, including puting the phase for attempts at economic development and population control in a? mammoth discharge from South Vietnam to Iran and the Middle East, ? turn outing the worth of a moderate, democratic manner of growing for societies. ?

Prefering my place is Undersecretary of State George Ball. He has been possibly the most relentless critic of escalation, and has repeatedly stressed the deductions involved in directing American military personnels. They would travel into Vietnam as aliens missing local cooperation and good intelligence in contending in unfavourable jungle terrain. On July 21st, Ball one last clip warned you that for the United States as with France before, ? a long drawn-out war will unwrap our failing, non our strength. ? American military personnels would be contending in a hostile environment on footings to be decided by the enemy for endurance of a weak and unstable authorities that would invariably run the hazard of Chinese intercession. President Johnson you are disquieted about the loss of national credibleness if you do non honour the perennial committednesss made to South Vietnam. The worst blow would be that the mightiest power in the universe is unable to get the better of guerrillas.

It must experience natural to go on at this point of the war. You have public approv

Al for the bombardment and escalation. Congress has proved their support by the Tonkin Gulf declaration, and has confirmed its purposes in May by offering overpowering support for extra appropriations to escalate attempts in Vietnam. Congressional leaders have given you their backup. Even the media has played a consensus-building function by visualizing Vietnam as this disposal sees it: as portion of the Cold War battle.

Mr. President, I need non remind you how fickle the American populace has been on this issue. Before the Tonkin Gulf clang, about two-thirds of the public knew small about Vietnam, and those who did were profoundly divided. After the February 1965 bombardment, several influential Americans and critics in the Senate began to talk out. By March, college campuses had broken out into protests with module learning out against your policy. You have seen the effects of the Korean War on Truman? s presidential term. We have learned that the populace has no gustatory sensation for Asiatic land wars. If you choose to go on, you will be falling into your ain portraiture of Senator Barry Goldwater whom you ruthlessly depicted as a adult male taking the American military personnels into a unsafe struggle.

Mr. President, I realize that you are a adult male who rises to run into challenges and does non accept licking. I besides realize that in your function as president you feel obligated to go on on with the Cold War policies that have long given form to U.S. Vietnam policy. I encourage you to reevaluate this policy and non experience obligated to go on down the incorrect way. There are power bets involved here, Mr. President, and rather honestly if you do non win by intensifying, your presidential term will go under fire, and you will ne’er accomplish your ends of the Great Society.

I am urging that we follow Ball? s recommendation of allowing the Vietcong to run in the free elections. We would non hold to any agreement worked out on these footings without take a firm standing that the Viet Cong units in the South be broken up and that the Viet Cong be absorbed into the national life of the state. The free elections would present a job, but if we asked mediators ( Sweden, the Soviets, etc. ) to do clear to Hanoi that we would accept this place, it could hold a opportunity for dialogues. There would necessitate to be a intermission in the bombardment, in order to direct a representative to discourse the affair. The intermission would guarantee Hanoi that we are serious in negociating. It is critical that our place be articulated and understood by the Viet Cong, so no confusion and misunderstanding consequence.

I understand the state of affairs in Saigon is critical, and you must move rapidly. I urge you non to make anything rash without prosecuting these options. We are an elect and comfortable state. We will non fall from our throne should you make up one’s mind non to widen our committedness. The United States may confront some immediate reverberations in the planetary community, but in my sentiment the security of the United States will non be compromised in this act. While the menace of Soviet expansionism is first and foremost on everyone? s heads, we must listen to the wants of the public whom you have been elected to stand for. You have been elected because you vowed non to direct American soldiers to decease in Saigon. As a adult male of unity I urge you to follow through on your word. Vietnam is a battle for societal unfairness and national sovereignty. These people are non traveling to give up for any ground whatsoever. There are deep chauvinistic political orientations at the bosom of the Vietnamese people that will non be conquered no affair what scale invasion the U.S. plans. Put your personal deductions aside and see the deductions for the state as a whole.

You are the leader of this state ; your advisers are non. Remember that these work forces are the work forces of Jack Kennedy? s circle. You were non in the place to name your ain advisors, and this must be remembered when listening to their advice. We are non losing the war by non intensifying. You will gain the regard of the American people in the long tally, and will be able to concentrate more attending on your great love, the Great Society.