Presidents At War
By opting to invade Iraq, George W. Bush was following in the footsteps of history
Only after a new president, Dwight Eisenhower, clandestinely threatened nuclear retaliation did the Communists agree to a compromise peace--a tie at best, not a victory for the United States.
Eisenhower sought to discourage further Soviet aggression by maintaining U.S. forces in Europe and Asia, by constructing alliances in the underdeveloped world, and by threatening massive retaliation with nuclear weapons even up to what his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, called "the brink of war." The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened to isolate U.S. forces in conventionally indefensible Berlin in 1957, 1960, and 1961 and installed nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962; Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy faced down the threats to Berlin, and Kennedy after tense negotiations persuaded the Soviets to withdraw the missiles, by secretly withdrawing missiles from Turkey and guaranteeing there would be no further attempts to overthrow the Castro regime. Khrushchev's successors never again made such threats, but they did encourage coups and guerrilla movements in the Third World, with varying success.
And nowhere more so than in Vietnam. Viet Cong insurgents had been operating in South Vietnam, aided by Communist North Vietnam, since the country was divided in 1954. The United States, in line with the Truman Doctrine, sent economic and military aid to South Vietnam. The critical moment of escalation came in August 1963, when Kennedy approved a coup against the South Vietnamese president, Ngo Dinh Diem; in November, Diem was killed. This effectively gave the responsibility for South Vietnam to the United States. Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, eventually sent 540,000 U.S. soldiers to Vietnam. But Gen. William Westmoreland's strategy of using intense firepower in the jungles and mountains resulted in heavy American casualties while failing to break the hold of the Viet Cong in densely populated areas. Johnson's refusal to threaten nuclear weapons and his unwillingness to attack North Vietnam, for fear of the kind of Chinese intervention that had nearly defeated the United States in Korea, meant the Communists had no reason to agree to a Korea-style peace. American opinion turned against the war, forcing Johnson to retire. Richard Nixon reduced troop levels, and Gen. Creighton Abrams adopted a strategy of protecting populated areas and building up South Vietnamese forces. A North Vietnamese invasion was repelled in 1972 and a peace agreement signed in December. But in 1975 the North Vietnamese attacked again in force, and a newly elected Democratic Congress denied the aid sought by Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, for the South Vietnamese. Saigon fell in April 1975--a galling defeat for America and a disaster for millions of South Vietnamese.
The outcome in Vietnam would inhibit American presidents and the American military for years to come. Jimmy Carter responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with an embargo on Soviet grain sales. When Iranian revolutionaries seized diplomats--an act of war under the laws of diplomacy--he responded with protracted negotiations and an eight-helicopter rescue mission that failed. Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980; the hostages were released on Inauguration Day, immediately after the Gipper was sworn in. Reagan's vast defense buildup in the 1980s, and his endorsement of strategic missile defense, were one factor in convincing Soviet leaders that they could no longer match America.
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