The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Barbara W. Tuchman “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam” Alfred A. Knopf, 1984, 387 pp.

Even though this book is rather old, 1984, its author Barbara Tuchman is one of my favorite historians.  She previously wrote the extremely impressive book “The Guns of August” which is an excellent history of WWI.  In this present book “The March of Folly” Tuchman utilizes four historical folly’s to illustrate that throughout history, regardless of place or period, governments tend to pursue policies contrary to their own interests: the Trojans' decision to move the Greek horse within the walls of their city; the refusal of six Renaissance Popes to arrest the growing corruption of their church and to recognize the increasing turmoil that would lead to the Protestant secession; the British misrule under King George III that eventually cost England her American colonies; and America's mishandling of the conflict in Vietnam.  All instances caused by people’s ‘wooden-headedness.’ 

Of course I found the accounts of King George III and Vietnam of most interest.  Reading the mistakes throughout the Vietnam fiasco is especially enlightening, particularly in relation to our present involvements in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.  The book is well worth reading, especially the Vietnam portion.

My Notes:

Pg.5:  Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination.  They are 1) tyranny or oppression; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens’ attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II’s Armada attack on England, Germany’s twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, etc.; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire; and finally, the focus of this book 4) folly or perversity: the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved. 

To qualify as folly for this book, the policy adopted must meet three criteria: it must have been perceived as counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight. Secondly a feasible alternative course of action must have been available.  A third criterion must be that the policy in question should be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and should persist beyond any one political lifetime. 

Pg. 52:  At about the time Columbus discovered America, the Renaissance—which is to say the period when the values of this world replaced those of the hereafter—was in full flower in Italy.  Over a period of sixty years, from roughly 1470 to 1530, the secular spirit of the age was exemplified in a succession of six popes who carried it to an excess of venality, amorality, avarice, and spectacularly calamitous power politics.  It ended by breaking apart the unity of Christendom and losing half the papal constituency to the Protestant secession.  The abuses of these six popes were not born full blown.  Rather they were a crown of folly upon habits of papal government that had developed over the previous 150 years deriving from the exile of the Papacy in Avignon through most of the 14^th century. 

Pg. 234:  The beginning of the American folly in Vietnam began during the last months of WWII with the reversal of FDR’s previous determination not to allow, and certainly not to assist, the restoration of French colonial rule in Indochina.  The engine of reversal was the belief, in response to strident French demand and damaged French pride resulting from the German occupation, that it was essential to strengthen France as the linchpin in Western Europe against Soviet expansion.  Ten days after Roosevelt’s death the US told the French that the US did not question French sovereignty over Indochina.  This was in response to a tantrum staged by de Gaulle in which the General had said that he had an expeditionary force ready to go to Indochina whose departure was prevented by the American refusal of transport, and that ‘if you are against us in Indochina’ this would cause ‘terrific disappointment’ in France, which could drive her into the Soviet orbit.

Pg. 235:  During WWII, by arrangement with the Japanese conquerors of Indochina and the Vichy government, the French Colonial administration with its armed forces had remained in Vietnam as surrogate rulers.  They remained until the eleventh hour when in March 1945 the Japanese ousted them from control. 

Pg. 257:  By the time of the terminal catastrophe at Dien Bien Phu, American investment in Indochina since 1946 had reached $2 billion and the US was paying 80 percent of the French expenditure for the war.  The US having in every policy advice and public pronouncement repeated the operating assumption that Vietnam’s preservation from Communism was vital to American Security, the US was lodged in the trap of its own propaganda.  The administration under Dulles’ guidance had convinced itself that to stop the advance of the Communist into Southeast Asia was imperative (the domino theory).

The matrix of this exaggeration was the state of the union: The witch-hunts of McCarthyism, of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the informers, the blacklists and the fire-eaters of the Republican right and the China Lobby, the trail of wrecked careers, had plunged the country into a fit of moral cowardice.  Everyone, in and out of office, trembled in anxiety to prove his anti-Communist credentials. 

Pg. 262:  During the battle of Dien Bien Phu, US Admiral Radford proposed asking for French approval to use three tactical atomic weapons to save the day.  His proposal was rejected.

Pg. 269:  By 1954, after eight years of US involvement in aiding the French in Indochina, and with the French effort having failed at cost in French Union troops of 50,000 killed and 100,000 wounded, the US might have seen indication for disengagement.

Pg. 298:  By mid-1962 American forces in Vietnam numbered 8000, by the end of the year 11,000, then months later, 17,000.  Even at this earlier time, US forces served alongside ARVN units at every level from battalion to division and general staff.  This was war by Executive, without Congressional authorization, and in the face of evasions or denials by the President, war virtually without public knowledge, though not without notice. 

Pg. 303:  President Kennedy told Senator Mansfield in March 1963 that he was beginning to agree about a complete military withdrawal from Vietnam.  “But I can’t do it until 1965- until after I’m elected.”  To do it before would cause a wild conservative outcry against him.  To his aide Kenneth O’Donnell, Kennedy repeated, “If I tried to pull out completely now, we could have another Joe McCarthy scare on our hands.”  His position was realistic, if not a profile in courage.

Pg. 311:  From the moment Lyndon Johnson took over the presidency, according to one who knew him well, he made up his mind that he was not going to ‘lose’ South Vietnam.  “I’m not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way that China went.”

Pg. 316:  The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 7 August 1964 gave Johnson the mandate he was seeking and left Congress suddenly staring helplessly at its empty hands.  It was a blank check for Executive war. (The Resolution was based on an attack on a US warship that never happened).

Pg. 347:  At the end of 1967 the Defense Department announced that the total tonnage of bombs dropped on North and South Vietnam together was over 1.5 million tons, surpassing by 75,000 tons the total dropped on Europe in WWII.  One limit had been reached.  In July 1967, Johnson had placed a ceiling on the escalation of ground forces at 525,000. 

Pg. 373:  On 27 January 1973 the treaty ending US involvement in Vietnam left the situation on paper no different from the insecure settlement of Geneva nineteen years before.  In the aftermath, Hanoi overcame Saigon within two years.  The new political order in Vietnam was approximately what it would have been if America had never intervened.  Except of course the US 45,000 killed and 300,000 wounded were sacrificed for nothing.  Expenditures of about $20 billion annually for nearly a decade, amounting to a total of $150 billion, contorted the economy to a condition that has not since been righted.