Both domestic and foreign, that ended the lives of millions of people. And changed the sensibilities forever of a generation. I should know, because im of that generation. Disputes have raged about every aspect of that war in the decades since it was over. And they actually started before, obviously, before the war was over. From time to time, new information and new interpretations come to the fore that cast light on the disputes involved. Thats what this seminar today is about. Were very fortunate to have with us to introduce todays speaker, a close student of the vietnam period, my colleague, professor paul stone. He will introduce the speaker, and also handle the question and answer period following our speaker. Paul stone. [ applause ] good afternoon, welcome to this session of the humphrey forum. This is also a joint meeting with my class, which my seminar, which is taking place right now, called government ethics and the public will. Can you imagine the good fortune of having this course going on, and this particular topic. I will point out that a major focus seems obvious, but is the presidency of the United States, and the role of the presidency. The president of the United States in shaping domestic and international issues. As a faculty member of the Humphrey School in the history department, one of my main objectives is to wean people away from certainty. But in the spring of 2017, were going to be paying a lot of attention to events of 50 years ago. This is exactly what steve is talking about, and i think this coming april, may, through the summer, well have a heightened sense of what it was to be in the United States 50 years ago. Lyndon johnson, and we may be able to look up at the collage, there was an effort to recapture some of the images of the 60s. Vice president humphrey and president johnson sitting there, and the map of vietnam is dividing them. This is no accident. President johnson, when he ordered Ground Troops into vietnam was well aware that 20 years ago, truman had ordered Nuclear Bombs into japan. And almost exactly 100 years ago today, minus five days, april 2nd of 1917, he asked for a joint declaration of war on imperial germany. He had run on staying out of these kinds of conflicts. I think were absolutely certain that president johnson was aware of all these things. Bob mentioned, my final point will be, as time goes on, new information comes to mind, those of us who have the privilege of working in these archives and libraries know how absolutely exciting it is to pick up a piece of paper that the secretary of defense or president had his hands on. A note that had gone to a scratchy senator from minnesota named Eugene Joseph mccarthy, about whether or not he was going to run for president. I think it brings history alive. Our talk today is about revisiting these living periods in history. And perhaps we will come away less certain than we were about some things. So, with that, i will introduce my colleague steve young. He was a dean at harvard law, hes been active in politics for quite a while. One of minnesotas, and i would say the nations, foremost experts on asian issues. He spent a good deal of his youth in thailand, seems to go back there about every other week. So, with that, i will say welcome to steve. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much, paul. And thank you, bob, and thanks to the humphrey institute, not only for the seminar, but for all that it does. I would like to tell you, briefly, a little bit about myself to set the context for what im going to reveal. And then i want to tell you a story about Lyndon Johnson, and how he personally set a different strategy for the war in vietnam in december, 1966, implemented in 1967. And then come up with some background and documentation. I began learning about vietnam when i was 9 years old, in 1954. Because my father, kenneth young, was first at the geneva conference, settling both the war in korea, and the war in indochina. He came back, and was put in charge of Southeast Asian affairs, where he was in 1958. So, our dinner conversation was often about vietnam and southeast asia. I remember conversations with dad and others, the vietnamese ambassadors were guests at our house. I grew up with that. As i was concluding college, i volunteered for the work of usaid in 1966. In 1967, a new organization had been created called c. O. R. D. S. Which is the result of what im going to tell you about in a few minutes. I had a year of language training, and then went to vietnam, i was a deputy district advisor for four months. In july of 69, i was pulled out of the field and put in saigon to work with decentralizing power to all the villages in vietnam. I came back, during that experience i learned a lot. Came back, went to law school, i learned to speak and read vietnamese in my year of language training, and im still soso, and then became more of an academic, if you will. I convinced the Ford Foundation for an english translation of the law code of 1493. I got money to do halftime working on this translation, and with my friend and colleague, this book, the tradition of human rights in china and vietnam. Subsequently, i did a couple of law review articles, boring stuff. The law of property 1428. I did an article west moore land versus cbs for parameters. Bunker who had been our ambassador in saigon who will figure in this story asked me to help me write his memoirs. So another grant to do another study. Read all his secret cables that he sent to president s johnson and nixon and other stuff. A lot of that stuff is going to be published by hamilton books in a couple of months. In the study of the cords program which flows from the story i am going to tell you. Penguin asked my wife and myself to translate this book. This is a novel but it reveals ho chi minh in a way that nobody has ever known and centered on something which is true but nobody knows about it which was the 1958 rape and murder of ho chi minhs wife by the minister of security. I throw that out there just as a little tease that there is still at this date in 2017 many, many things about the vietnamese that we just dont know in the west. And also, i think there may be things about our own people we may not know that much about. Now, i would like to tell you the story. So ellsworth asked me to help him write his memoirs. So i started off in getting to know his background. And then i asked him, mr. Ambassador, why did the president send you to saigon. He says oh, thats easy. Dominican republic. How many of you remember the Dominican Republic in 1965 . Yeah, two professors. Anyway, so i sort of started and bunker could see i was puzzled. And he said, i got him out, all the american troops went home and he remembered. And then it clicked because i had known something about what happened after bunker had been appointmented. You may remember in the spring of 65, there was a political controversy in the Dominican Republic. The military split into two groups. A conservative group and a left leaning group. The left leaning group pulled a coup, castro was ready to pounce. Then he had a problem. How do you get him out . You sort of stabilize the situation. Anyway, bunker by accident was there. He worked on a political strategy to create a coalition among different factions of dominicans to come together for an election. Peace, no shooting, no violence. And the American Forces went home. In 1967, johnson called bunker in. And got to vietnam and ellsworth was surprised because he didnt see this coming. To my knowledge, this conversation was never recorded. Bunker i dont think has ever told anybody about it. He didnt tell his wife carol. I told me. So president johnson has passed away. Bunker passed away. I have yet to pass away. But i can pass on the story. So johnson said i wanted to go to saigon and turn the war over to the South Vietnamese so we can withdrawal our troops. This has lyndon bans johnson. If i remember, the vitriol and the stereotyping of johnson about a man committed to bombing and destroying of escalation. Here he is sending an ambassador to prepare the way forthe withdrawal of american troops. By turning the war over to the South Vietnamese. And bunker went out and i will tell you, i wont tell you the whole story, it will take too much time. But he went out and basically did that. So how did this happen . Why would johnson had made this decision . Let me point out that this decision was made by lyndon bans johnson himself. And i will tell you more about it as we go through t this is a personal decision by the president of the United States to set a Strategic Direction for the american participation in the war and he was going against his secretary of defense mac nam aira, the joint chiefs of staff and did not consult the cia or the state department. The track record and the documents in the Humphrey Library thanks to professor stone, i was able to go there and find stuff which has been overlooked by scholars for many years that have been sitting there in the files which shows you the steps in the story. Let me try to set a Historical Context of the vietnam war coming down to the fall of 1966. As you know, the french colonized indochina in the 19century. During the end of world war ii, the japanese, they were occupying indochina, and they overthrew the french governing authority. Placed the French Military in containme containment camps. Please Pay Attention to the word nationalism. They failed to do two things, the japanese. One, they did not give this government an army. So you had independent vietnam with its own government and no army. Secondly, there was a very special vietnamese political leader who nobody ever heard of. And he is a descendant of the first king that came to power. Had the japanese brought him back in the waning months of world war ii to be the leader of vietnam, history would have been different. The japanese lose the war. And there is a free for all among vietnamese as to who is going to create a government. Who is going to have the power. In this, in Early September ho chi minh and his viet minh plus communist they stage a coup in hanoi and proclaim themselves an independent vietnam and proclaim themselves a government. That night, i may get too much into the weeds for you, but there is an important theme here which we americans dont know enough about. That night, members of two political groups on the Vietnamese National side, the die vets and the other side met. What are we going to do these guys set up a government. And some of the men in the room wanted to go fight. The leader of the dai vets say we will not do that. So they didnt strike back at the communist. Within nine months onethird to half of the men in that room had been killed by the communist. On september 9th, 1945, the official gazette of the vietnamese government issued this order. I will read it in vietnamese and then english. [ reading in vietnamese ] order. This dissolves the two parties the dai vet this is sevendays after the viet minh have taken power. Will be brought before the court for serious punishment. The ministers of interior defense and justice will implement this order. Signed minister of the interior the famous Japanese Military leader. So within sevendays of taking power the communist outlawed two principled forces. Military basis of theday vets and the vqdd. So they go to the chinese who come in and in march 1946 they make a deal with the french. They bring the french back to vietnam. Ho chi minh agrees to have the french army return to central and North Vietnam and in return, the french conclude that ho chi minh is the leader of the vietnamese people. Ho chi minh was created as a vietnamese leader by the colonialist. They set him up. Over the next six months, their negotiations between ho and the french for an independent vietnam within the french union by the end of 1946 w the nationalist opposition either liquidated or intimidated, the two parties start fighting each other. They fight to a stale mate in 1954. Along the way, however, which is overlooked and a friend of mine in france found this document in the French Colonial archives. This is the order for the execution of a young man who founded a religion and this is a report up to the north that he is been executed. So it was the communist many vietnamese believe who started the civil war by suppressing and liquidating the nationalist. The french cant prevail but the viet minh cant either. A conference was called in geneva to work out a way for allowing the french to government. China suggests a deal. The deal is to divide vietnam in two with the communist having control of the north. And the french and their supporters having control of the south. The americans dont like this. But the french have already agreed separately with the chinese to do this. The Vietnamese Nationalist feel betrayed. But the deal is done and socalled geneva accords are publicized but nobody has signed them. The people can relocate. And a new government is set up in South Vietnam. It is technically the old french government with a new prime minister. The question is what are the americans going to do . Well one of the things is we set up under dull less, looking to create containment against mao in china. A decision was made to support the South Vietnamese government. This was affirmed by the letter of president eisenhower in october 1954. My father wrote the letter. There is a paragraph in here which i want to submit to you and to all americans absolutely fundamental in explaining the morality and the efficacy of our effort in South Vietnam which paragraph has been overlooked as far as i can tell by every scholar and every commentator. I read, the purpose of this offer is to assist the government of vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong viable state capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means. The government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the government of vietnam in under taking needed reforms. It hopes that such aid combined with your own continuing efforts will contribute effectively towards an independent vietnam endowed with a strong government. Such a government would i hope be so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose and effective in performance that it will be respected both at home and apraud and discouraged any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people. And we committed ourselves to South Vietnam. In 1959, the power in the bureau had shifted away from ho chi minh to lay zuan. And he pushed through a program of taking over South Vietnam by force. This was in the resolution 59 i think. Setting up group 555 which was opening up the infiltration trail down through laos and another group which was infiltrating people via sea. Not use a policy of relying on the nationalist but relying on the family, police and catholics. The vietcong were able to increase their activity level, their cause more dissension. In november 1960, there was an attempted coup aimed at his younger brother. And i remember this because it was after the election in november. And we knew that dad was going to be appointed ambassador to thailand. And so we were all as kids getting ready to be new frontier people. And dad said one day, well i just got a call from the government and there was an attempted coup in vietnam. And they are calling me to get advice on what the americans should do. So i focused on that. Recently, the hanoi has released a lot of the documents party documents and we now have english translations of the orders of the bureau to the china Regional Party committee and the interzone party committee. These are instructions on setting up the National Liberation in the vietcong which was established at the order of hanoi. And they gu through the ten principles of the nfl. The nlf starts to grow. The hanoi sends down more people. In 1960 they sends down 1217 and this is a document from hanois ministry of defense which shows all the troops they sent south. This was given to me by a former North Vietnamese leader now in exile in paris. So hanoi escalates by creating the vietcong. They mobilized local people and started assassinating village chiefs, people organizing people around a particular cause. What does the Kenny Administration going to do . In the end of 1961, jack kennedy decides and their implications because of the bay of pigs debacle, he escalates on our side. In particularly a strategic hamlin program is begun. Which is a lot of argument to this day. And i myself have no clear judgment as to whether the program was that successful or not. It wasnt a total failure. Whether it was success as some people say, i dont know. In any case, the government had more strength in the rural areas through the Strategy Program but lost support. Another coup. The first coup and this coup was led by Young National officers. This time the coup succeeds and he and his brother were murdered. The leader of the coup was min. And he and the other coup leaders come out of the french army. They were not part of the nationalist tradition and there was a new government. Hanoi responds in late 63 and early 64 with more escalation. Westmoreland becomes the commandser. My feeling is that vietnam is not something that Lyndon Johnson wants to spend a lot of time. He has an instinct that this thing is not going to go in a good way. So basically, i would argue he does not elevate the issue during the campaign. Goldwater tries to make something out of it. And there is a l