NSC Working Group On South Vietnam - Background To The Working Group

Background To The Working Group

Nikita Khrushchev had just been overthrown on October 15, 1964, and American foreign policy experts did not know what to expect from Russia as Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin took over the Soviet world. China had also just exploded its first missile over Lap Nor. Brian VanDeMark captures the mood:

This fear, however exaggerated, reflected deeply rooted perceptions. Johnson and his advisers viewed China in 1964 much like Truman and his advisers had viewed Russia after World War II--as a militantly expansive force to be contained until mellowed by internal forces or external pressures.

"Until this week," LBJ noted, "Only four powers had entered the dangerous world of nuclear explosions...whatever their differences, all four are sober and serious states, with long experiences as major powers in the world...Communist China has no such experience." While LBJ may be correct somewhat, China viewed its primary enemy as Russia, not the United States. Time Magazine would further raise hell suggesting that, "In the Vast sweep of country from Angkor Wat to the Great Wall, from the Yellow Sea to Pamirs, Red China seeks hegemony" and Gallop polls noted China was feared more than Russia. The world had become an ideological battleground where one was either for or against communism—no room for middle ground. LBJ was afraid of losing Vietnam as Truman had lost China. Truman said:

I knew Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day that the Communists took over in China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all these problems, taken together, were chickenshit compared with what might happen if we lost Vietnam