| Author | Message | | gchq | | Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:43 am Post subject: THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX |
| THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND THE GULF OF TONKIN PROCLAMATION.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the first three years following WW II, I was assigned by the Air Force as a Professor of Air Science at Yale University. My primary subject was entitled "The Evolution of Warfare." There could not have been a more fortuitous time for that subject because of the impact of the Atomic Bomb upon conventional Strategic War Planning.
I was provided with the best-source data available to the Air Force, and by the Yale University library, on this basic subject that is as ancient as civilization itself. It was a most interesting and significant period to teach; and to learn. Not just because of those weapons; but because of the on-set of the Cold War that had artfully been promoted by the OSS, since September 1944.
It was said, that if the spectrum of weaponry that had evolved throughout the course of history was rated on a scale from ONE to ONE MILLION with the development from swords and spears to long range artillery, aircraft carrier task forces and to aerial bombardment, the introduction of the nuclear weapon had advanced the Art of War to INFINITY. What all-out warfare would be like in the future was unknowable in the turbulent forties.
I had been on duty as a true horse-back riding Cavalry-man, even to the long-sword bit, since before July, 1941. Then, when the Army got rid of horses, I was transferred into the tanks of the 4th Armored Division. Soon thereafter, because I already possessed a pilot's license, I was transferred to the Army Air Corps and spent the rest of WW II flying with the Air Transport Command all over the world. I was in Japan the day before the Japanese Surrender documents were signed in the presence of Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the deck of the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2nd 1945.
Ten years later, during 1955, after my return from three years in Asia at the time of the Korean War and the early years of the warfare in Indochina, I was assigned to the Directorate of Plans in Headquarters, U.S. Air Force in the Pentagon. This too was significant. By 1955, the military had learned, as a result of Gen. MacArthur's recall from Korea, that all-out conventional warfare was a thing of the past...all because of the limitless power of Nuclear Weaponry, because anyone losing the former would have to resort to the latter...his own, or an ally's. In the format of the Cold War in a bi-polar world, this was a deadly alternative. No Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces was ever going to be free to direct the use of Nuclear Weapons. This incontestable argument made the drawing of plans for "all-out, unrestricted" warfare impossible, as we had learned in Korea and as would be carved in stone by our political leaders in that thirty-year, costly, pseudo-warfare of Vietnam.
Despite this situation, the "$aigon $olution" (Note to editor: use "$" as done here to emphasize the meaning of the goal to make money with a Saigon Solution.) chosen by the military industrial complex for the Indochina conflict paid off to the tune of no less than $570 billion between 1945 and 1975. At the same time it is shocking to note that on Oct 23, 1963, one week before the Diem brothers died in Saigon, and one month before Kennedy died in Dallas, Ambassador Lodge sent the following telegram to the Department of State: "To strike a balance, the word Victory must first be defined. How do we know when we have won" Our Ambassador, officially designated the #1 U.S. representative in Vietnam, had no way to know; but our major industrialists did!
Despite the business side of the warfare, we had reached the point where War Planners were asking, "Can a nation survive and retain its sovereignty in a condition of permanent peace?" This question, which we heard in the corridors of the Pentagon during the early sixties, is taken from Leonard Lewin's portentous novel, "The Report From Iron Mountain." It is surprising now to look back to see what some of the most important pronouncements on this subject have been. The following extract is from a speech made by General Douglas MacArthur on July 5, 1961, when this "desperate struggle,"(John Foster Dulles' term), in Vietnam was already in its sixteenth year, and but one year prior to the Cuban Missile crisis that was exacerbated by the specter of nuclear weapons.
MacArthur was referring to the Strategic utilization of such weapons:
"...this very triumph of scientific annihilation--this verysuccess of invention--has destroyed the possibility ofwar's being a medium for the practical settlement of international differences. The enormous destruction to bothsides of closely matched opponents makes it impossible foreven the winner to translate it into anything but his owndisaster".
"Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides.No longer is it a weapon of adventure--the shortcut tointernational power. If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose. No longer does it possesseven the chance of the winner in a duel. It contains nowonly the germs of double suicide."
This was the kind of talk we heard in the Pentagon, especially after the arrival of the former president of the Ford Company, Robert McNamara and his "Whiz Kids" following the tenure of Thomas Gates, later president of Morgan Guarantee Trust. When they were confronted with their first Defense Budget estimates they were literally shocked to discover that they would have to find some way to justify the expenditure of more than $50 billion dollars per year for the first time in military budget history, and to do that in the face of nuclear warfare. "How do we make plans, and support a budget, to fight that type of warfare?" (The man I heard express those views most frequently was Ed Katzenbach formerly the dean at Princeton.)
We must recall that this "Kennedy team" had arrived in the Pentagon during January 1961. Two days earlier, they had heard that most ominous "Farewell Address" from President Eisenhower delivered on Jan 17, 1961. They knew all too well that this presentation was not the result of some casual whimsy:
"The conjunction of an immense establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence--economic, political, even spiritual--is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal Government...In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist...We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."
With that warning from the most experienced military man alive, as well as our President for eight crucial Cold War, nuclear tainted years, ringing in our ears, let me give you an example of how the skilled advance-men of that military industrial complex operated in the Pentagon. Keep in mind that this was in the same atmosphere in which Mac Arthur and Eisenhower had forecast that all possibility of meaningful warfare in the future was futile; yet this combination of "an immense establishment," "a large arms industry," and that "Global war had become a Frankenstein" made it all but impossible to allocate the $50 billion of the last Eisenhower administration Defense Budget to a meaningful purpose. As we now know, every penny was spent without hesitation.
In 1959, when I was Chief of Special Operations for the Air Force, a Vice President of a major East Coast bank dropped into my office. This was unusual because the Door Card said "Team B" and no more. How did this out-of-town banker know about the highly classified work of "Team B." There is but one answer. The CIA sent him. The CIA is this country's 'make war' machine for the creation of little wars that keep the military industrial complex alive as they become large wars, and in the process the CIA arranges for billions of "Defense" dollars to be spent behind the scenes on "Highly Classified-Black Budget" projects. We should always keep in mind that the usual cost to support military materiel for a "life of type" period is ten times its original procurement cost in dollars.
After introductions, this banker got right down to business. He said that his bank represented a major corporation that was desirous of merging with an old-line aircraft and helicopter manufacturing company that was then on the verge of bankruptcy. The armed forces, in 1959, were buying few helicopters and the commercial market was slim.
He continued by saying that he had heard that I had something to do with the provision of a squadron of large combat helicopters in Laos, (which was correct) and that I might have some idea what the operational demand for military helicopters in South East Asia might be in future years.
I told him that the Administration had plans for continuing its activity in Laos and that following the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam in 1954, and the provisions of the Geneva Agreement of the same year, the burden of providing support for the new nation of South Vietnam was increasing annually. The type of military support needed in such a situation could very well place an increasing demand upon the utilization of helicopters. Overall, many thousands of helicopters were sent to Vietnam. The figure of 4,865 were lost or destroyed there, each had cost $250,000 to procure, let alone a much greater figure required to support them in the field during the period of their use.
He thanked me for our discussion, and just at that time we saw clouds of smoke coming up through the air vent system in my office. We went into the hall and found it full of smoke. Thousands of people were heading for the doors. The Pentagon was on fire...somewhere. I escorted my visitor to the Concourse and found that huge hall-way "super market" place to be ankle deep in water. My guest had left his coat and suitcase in a locker across the Concourse. We waded to his locker, got outside, and said "Good-bye" under those unusual conditions. "Bell-Textron" story had similar characteristics. That was 1959.
That big company, Textron, that had been talking with its bankers did merge with the helicopter manufacturer, Bell Aircraft. Then in the fall of 1960, right after the Kennedy election, I received a call from General C.P. Cabell, Deputy Director of the CIA asking me to transfer that squadron of U.S. Marine Corps helicopters from Laos to Saigon. Up to that time we had been prohibited from moving any new military equipment into Vietnam under the terms of the 1954 Geneva Agreements. I reminded Gen Cabell of that, and asked if the National Security Council had directed that action. His answer was not positive.
In accordance with the specific rules of my duties, as defined by the National Security Council, I went to the office of the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Gates, and checked the NSC book of approved business. I found no notation for such a transaction. Under the terms of that NSC Directive #5412, all Covert Activity of the CIA had to have been "Directed" by the NSC. I returned Gen. Cabell's call, and informed him that under present conditions I could not comply with his request, and suggested that the CIA bring the matter up at the next NSC meeting. They did. The helicopter transfer was approved and directed. I ordered the movement of that big Marine squadron, or its equivalent, to Saigon. (Actually, I believe new helicopters were delivered to Saigon and that they were operated and maintained by CIA civilian contract resources.) That was the first major breach of the Geneva Agreements, and you will note that it was done during the Eisenhower "Lame Duck" period as that team of cabinet officials was leaving, and the Kennedy men had not yet arrived. (The "Bay of Pigs" Cuban-exile operation was run through the system during that same "Lame Duck" period. Eisenhower had never approved such an invasion plan.)
Kennedy had defeated Nixon in the 1960 election in November, and in no time those of us in the Pentagon began to hear sounds of the animosity that existed between the new Kennedy team, and the Eisenhower incumbents. This was evident in this request for the move of helicopters. By the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 the U.S. Armed Forces had lost 4,865 helicopters that had cost no less than one billion and one-quarter dollars. Keep in mind that it is a standard procurement rule that the purchase cost is only one-tenth of the life-of-type overall support cost. Such statistics are the life blood of the military industrial complex as spelled out in dollars.
The usual "all up" figure for the cost of the Vietnam War is $570 billion. By the end of the Kennedy "1,000 days" only a small portion of that money had been expended; and just before Kennedy's death he had published the National Security Action Memorandum #263 that directed, along other things, that 1,000 servicemen would be brought home from Vietnam by Christmas-time in 1963 and that all U.S. personnel (not limited to all military personnel) would be out of Vietnam by the end of 1965.
( NOTE to editor: Use a copy of the photo of the Stars and Stripes newspaper of that day with that headline, enclosed.)) There can be little doubt that this statement of President Kennedy's policy cost him his life as a result of a consensual decision reached by aroused elements of the military industrial complex. They wanted him out of the way, because they knew that he would be re-elected in 1964, and would then be in a position to carry out that NSAM #263 policy. So they ordered it done by a professional "hit team"... just as Lyndon Johnson had confirmed shortly before his death.
At the time of Kennedy's death there was a strange bit of paperwork underway in the White House. We have copies of a draft of a National Security Action Memorandum, prepared by McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. It is dated Nov 21, 1963...the day before the President's death. Normally such a paper, in draft form, would have been prepared only at the direction of President Kennedy on that date. However, in small steps this draft signaled a change in the Kennedy policy established only ten days earlier with NSAM #263. We have the full record of the development of Kennedy's Vietnam policy in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, 1961-1963 Volume IV, Vietnam August-December 1963. There can be no question of that policy as formally approved on Oct 11, 1963, and that the draft of NSAM #273 was the beginning of a change of that policy, and of the enormous military escalation in Vietnam much to the satisfaction of the military industry complex.
Despite this, the new draft document of Nov 21, 1963 underwent several significant changes between the time of Kennedy's death and the date when it was approved formally by President Johnson on Nov 26, 1963, only four days later. In its final, Johnson approved form, it is quite different in substance from the "Kennedy" draft. In fact the NSAM #273 of Nov 26, 1963 can easily be read as the beginning of a reversal of the Kennedy policy as stated on Oct 11, 1963 with NSAM # 263. Who could have known, before Kennedy died, that he intended to begin an escalation of the warfare in Vietnam contrary to his decision of Oct. 11th? Someone wanted to make it appear that he did. Thus this National Security Action Memorandum with its origin before his death. Or should the question be, "Did those connected with the creation of this document know...ahead of time...that Kennedy was scheduled to die?" This is a measure of the pressures of that time.
To continue a bit farther, on March 16, 1964 President Johnson signed an NSAM #288 that finished the task of completely changing the Kennedy policy and began the enormous escalation of military forces that reached 550,000 by the end of the 60's decade. It was this type of change that assured the military industrial complex of the windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars called the "Vietnam War" with its carefully planned "Saigon Solution." But this is not the end of the story. President Johnson's NSAM #288 said:
"We seek an independent non-Communist South Vietnam...Unless we can achieve this objective in South Vietnam, almost all of Southeast Asia will probably fall under Communist dominance...Thus, purely in terms of foreign policy, the stakes are high."
By mid-1964 Ambassador Lodge had resigned to run for the presidency that fall, and he had been replaced, as U.S. Ambassador in Saigon, by none other than Kennedy's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Maxwell Taylor. Also, Gen Paul Harkins left his command in Saigon to be replaced by his deputy, Gen. William C. Westmoreland.
At that crucial time, the experienced Peer de Silva was the CIA Station Chief in Saigon. It would be hard to set the stage for that crucial period better than he has done in his book "Sub Rosa:" "Prior to leaving Washington, Westmoreland had been given his orders by Taylor, then Chairman, JCS:
"'Westy, you get out there and take charge. Get the military command and the ARVN (South Vietnamese armed forces) organized and then fight the war right, the way we did in France. It's a big war and we'll fight it like one. We must bring enough firepower and bombs down on the Vietcong to make them realize they're finished; only then will they toss in the sponge".
The important thing to realize from de Silva's words is that General Taylor gave these orders to Westmoreland in December 1963--only one month after Kennedy's death, less than one month after Johnson had signed the rather tentative document NSAM #273, three months before that crucial NSAM #288, and more than seven months before President Johnson was to ask Congress for the authority to use the armed forces of the United States in a war in Southeast Asia.
What did Gen. Maxwell Taylor know, in December 1963, about "the big war" that caused him to make such a statement? At that time, the United States had only 15,914 military personnel in South Vietnam, of whom fewer than 2,000 were "military advisors." The others were helicopter maintenance crewmen, supply personnel, and the like.
Did Maxwell Taylor actually visualize the action in Vietnam as being similar to that which had confronted the Allied Forces under General Eisenhower in Europe in 1944? Did General Taylor actually equate the black-pajama-clad "Vietcong" with the battle- trained, heavily armed forces of Nazi Germany? What kind of orders was he giving Westmoreland? What did he expect the warfare in Indochina to become? More importantly, Taylor's orders to Westmoreland came at a time when no American soldier was serving in Southeast Asia under the operational control and command of a U.S. military officer. Those soldiers serving in support of military-type operations, in Vietnam, served under the operational control of CIA agents. How, then, could he have seenit as a "big war."
Even as recently as 1995, when former Defense Secretary McNamara wrote his book "In Retrospect", his sub-title was limited to the words "The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam." He could not bring himself to add that crucial word "War!" However it was clearly evident that the first half of the year 1964 was used to set the stage for the next ten years of warfare in Southeast Asia. It all began with a series of CIA-controlled covert operations.
On July 30, 1964, "South Vietnamese" PT boats made a midnight attack that included an amphibious commando raid on the Hon Me and Hon Nieu islands just off the coast of North Vietnam above the 19th parallel, north latitude. The North Vietnamese responded by sending their high-speed KOMAR boats after the raiders. The PT boats escaped; but the KOMAR's spotted the U.S.S. Maddox in the vicinity. The Maddox claimed that the KOMARS had fired torpedoes and that "a bullet fragment was recovered from the destroyer's superstructure."
On the night of August 3, 1964, more "South Vietnamese" commando raids were made on the coast of North Vietnam, and the Vinh Sonh radar installation was hit. Because of its importance, this raid was most certainly made by CIA mercenaries. Following that, a claim was made of an intercepted radio transmission saying, "North Vietnamese naval forces had been ordered to attack the patrol" consisting of the Maddox and the Turner Joy. It was this incident that triggered the action that led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of August 1964. These plans and other related actions had been leading up to this event since November 22, 1963 and the guns of Dallas, and the preparatory steps had been under way since at least March 1964 with the publication of the Johnson administration's NSAM #288 of March 17, 1964 that followed another McNamara-Taylor "fact-finding?" trip at that time.
With the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in hand and with the military industrial complex well prepared to provide the supplies needed for the next ten years of pseudo-warfare, if not longer, President Johnson had the authority in hand to order U.S. Marines under the command of Marine officers to land on Red Beach north of Danang on the east coast of Vietnam.
That was March 8, 1965. By March 12, 1965 the last of that movement of 3,500 Marines had arrived in Vietnam.
These Marines were reinforced in Vietnam on May 2 when about 3,500 men of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, from Okinawa, arrived. They were stationed in the vicinity of Bienhoa.
With this action underway, my old Pentagon boss, Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak, USMC, who was then Commander of the Fleet Marine Force Pacific with responsibility for all Marines in the Pacific Ocean area drew up a seventeen-page strategic appraisal of the situation in Vietnam. His objective was to win the war, and to win it as soon as possible. His next, and most important task was to get his war-plan to people who could take some effective action to approve it. (Following parts are extracted from Gen. Krulak's unequaled account of the problems of a major commander during the warfare period in Vietnam as contained in his book, "First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps." 1984, U.S. Naval Institute Press.)
First he took the plan to his immediate boss, Admiral U.S.G. Sharp, Commander-in Chief, Pacific in Hawaii. Adm. Sharp liked his plan for military operations in Vietnam and instructed Gen. Krulak to pass it on to General Greene the Marine Commandant in Washington. Greene liked the plan and authorized Krulak to discuss it with Defense Secretary McNamara. Krulak had extensive contact with McNamara during the 1962-1964 period, when he served on the Joint Staff as the focal point officer for the military counterinsurgency effort. I worked directly with Krulak during those years as his Chief of Special Operations, and can confirm that his relationship with the Secretary was excellent.
After reading Krulak's strategic study, McNamara suggested, "Why don't you talk to Governor Harriman?" Averill Harriman, was then serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. Without delay, Harriman agreed to see Krulak and invited him to lunch at his Georgetown house. Just the two of them were there.
Krulak reports, "Over the soup, I spoke of the ineffectiveness of the air campaign as it was being waged and of the impressive quantities of artillery, rockets, mortars, and anti-aircraft guns pouring down the Ho Chi Minh Trail." Finally he got to the heart of his proposal for action, i.e. "destroy the port areas, mine the ports, destroy the rail lines, destroy power, fuel and heavy industry."
"At that point Harriman stopped me. His forehead wrinkled, his heavy eyebrows bristled. Waving his soup spoon in my direction, he demanded, 'Do you want a war with the Soviet Union or the Chinese?' I replied that I did not, that I was sure the Russians were not about to start a war with the United States over a fight in Indochina and that, if put to the test, the North Vietnamese would probably prefer having Americans in their country to Chinese, whom they hate."
Krulak writes, "Harriman shook his head; he did not agree. Mining the harbor at Haiphong, he said, would probably bring on hostilities with the Soviets...It was plain he had little enthusiasm for attacking the ports and logistic bases in North Vietnam, and I winced when I thought about the kind of advice he was giving President Johnson and Secretary of State Rusk."
This is a most important observation on the part of Krulak. It was Harriman who was the Ambassador to Moscow during WW II and who over-saw the billions of dollars of foreign military aid that this country provided to the Soviets. It was during the end of this period of time that top level agents of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) while arranging the evacuation of a thousand or more U.S. airmen from the Balkans secretly slipped a hundred or more German and Romanian Nazis into the POW freight train that traveled through the Balkans to Syria on their way to the United States. Harriman was beyond doubt one of the High Cabal, to use Winston Churchill's term for those in the highest levels of business and power who actually rule their countries and the world.
The fact that the Commander of the Fleet Marine Force Pacific and his superiors all the way to the President had to defer to Harriman's views of the warfare in Vietnam is the most crucial fact of this account. Plans for the warfare in Southeast Asia were begun at the Teheran Conference of Dec. 1943 between Stalin, Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-Shek, and Churchill...with Churchill in disagreement. They included plans for de colonization in Southeast Asia as well as independence for Korea. As we look back at these events we realize that these plans, made with or without knowledge of the availability of Nuclear Weapons were designed to continue the vast expenditures demanded by the military complex in the aftermath of the greatest war ever fought...World War II.
Despite these setbacks Gen. Krulak continued his struggle for approval of his war plan. Early in 1966 the Commandant arranged for Gen. Krulak to see President Johnson. His first question was, "What is it going to take to win?".
Krulak responded, "...the only real answer was to stop the supplies, not when they were dispersed in the North Vietnam road system or when they got to the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, but before they ever crossed the dock in Haiphong. "Then I voiced the critical words, urging that we Mine the ports, destroy the Haiphong dock area."
Krulak closes with, "That was it. As soon as he heard me speak of mining and unrestrained bombing of the ports, Mr. Johnson got to his feet, put his arm around my shoulder, and propelled me firmly toward the door. It was plain to me that the Washington civilian leadership was taking counsel with its fears. They were willing to spend $30 billion a year on the Vietnam enterprise but they were unwilling to accept the timeless philosophy of John Paul Jones: "It seems to be a truth, inflexible and inexorable, that he who will not risk cannot win."
As we know WW II was over and conventional warfare died with it. In the ancient days, "War began with plunder, and the weapons at hand." Years later Carl von Clauswitz added that "War is not merely a political act but a political instrument." That was better; but, it was Alexis de Tocqueville, in his insightful book, "Democracy in America" of 1835, who defined "War" in its modern dress: "The secret connection between the military character and that of the democracies was the profit motive."
No military activity, since the end of WW II, has done more to prove that accurate observation by de Tocqueville than the thirty year, carefully orchestrated conflict called the "Vietnam War". When it becomes indisputably clear that the top military command can be over-ruled totally by the civilian hierarchy, both in and out of the Government...as we have seen in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the over-ruling of the military command structure from General Krulak to the Chiefs of Staff and their civilian leaders, McNamara and Johnson, we have no alternative than to believe that it is the "Profit Motive" in peacetime and in war, which defines a Democracy, especially in this age of the Nuclear Weapon. | |  | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
