8. A Date which does not Live in Infamy

The irony -- to use a word that hardly meets the need -- is heightened by another anniversary that did not reach threshold. The 50th anniversary of the "date which will live in infamy" coincided with the 30th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's escalation of the Vietnam conflict from large-scale international terrorism to outright aggression. On October 11, 1961, Kennedy ordered dispatch of a US Air Force Farmgate squadron to South Vietnam, 12 planes especially equipped for counterinsurgency warfare (combat modified T-28 fighter bomber trainers, SC-47s, and B-26 bombers), soon authorized "to fly coordinated missions with Vietnamese personnel in support of Vietnamese ground forces." On December 16, Defense Secretary McNamara authorized their participation in combat operations. These were the first steps in engaging US forces directly in bombing and other combat operations in South Vietnam from 1962, along with sabotage missions in the North. These 1961-1962 actions laid the groundwork for the huge expansion of the war in later years.⁵⁹

As we have seen, the anniversary did not pass entirely unmarked: Bush chose the occasion -- almost 30 years to the day after Kennedy's first major step in this fateful direction -- to block the admission of Vietnam to the world community, and the propaganda apparatus orchestrated a revival of its POW/MIA hypocrisies. To the best of my knowledge, the conjunction of anniversaries reached the media three times: Michael Albert (Z magazine), and Alexander Cockburn (Nation, Los Angeles Times).⁶⁰

In a world of truth and honesty, that failure could be attributed to the distinction between the two cases, so large as to make the comparison irrelevant and unfair. It hardly makes sense to draw a comparison between Japan's attack on a naval facility in a US colony, after some relevant earlier interactions, and the first major act of aggression against a defenseless civilian society 10,000 miles away. History offers no controlled experiments, but those who seek an analogy might, perhaps, compare Japan's sneak attack to the US bombing of Libya in 1986, carefully timed for the 7pm EST national evening news; the Reagan PR folks borrowed a leaf from Lyndon Johnson, who had ordered the bombing of North Vietnam in retaliation for the alleged Tonkin Gulf incident in August 1964 for 7pm EST, though the military could not oblige in that case. But this comparison too, one might argue, is still unfair to the Japanese. The US attack on Libya was aimed at civilian targets, on fraudulent pretexts; the Tonkin Gulf "retaliation" too was readily detected to be a fraud, outside the compliant mainstream.⁶¹

Such thoughts are doubtless too outlandish to pursue. Let us therefore put them aside, though some might find something in them to consider as we turn to Year 501.

The coincidences of 1991-1992 are striking: great indignation on the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the backgrounds carefully sanitized; sober contemplation of the Mind of Japan and the social and cultural flaws revealed therein; silence on the 30th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's direct attack against the civilian society of South Vietnam. The combination is a rare tribute to the moral cowardice and intellectual corruption that are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege.

One last coincidence might be noted, of no small interest in itself. The forgotten 30th anniversary of JFK's aggression happened to be the occasion for an outpouring of adulation for the fallen leader who, it was claimed with some passion, intended to withdraw from Vietnam, a fact suppressed by the media; and had been assassinated for that reason, it was prominently charged. The awed admiration for Kennedy the lonely hero, struck down as (and perhaps because) he sought to prevent a US war in Vietnam, adds an interesting touch to the questions of hansei that might find some small place in the 500th year. This 1991-1992 drama proceeded at several levels, from cinema to scholarship, engaging some of the best-known Kennedy intellectuals as well as substantial segments of the popular movements that in large part grew from opposition to the Vietnam war. Much as they differ on parts of the picture and other issues, there is a shared belief across this spectrum that history changed course dramatically when Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, an event that casts a dark shadow over all that followed. Specific timing apart, the renewal of Camelot enthusiasms is an interesting and enlightening manifestation of the cultural and political climate of the early 1990s.

There is no doubt about the import of what followed Kennedy's 1961 aggression. The nature of his plans and the reaction to them is therefore of great interest. The perception of current reality, the shaping of memories, and ideas about a better future could be significantly affected by the truth of the matter: At one end of the spectrum of views, the murder of the President, however tragic the killing of an individual may be, was an event of indeterminate political consequence, though one may speculate one way or another without firm basis⁶²; at the other, it was a momentous historical event, with extraordinary long-term significance and ominous portent.

There are many sources of evidence that bear on the question: in particular, the record of internal deliberations is available far beyond the norm. While history never permits anything like definitive conclusions, in this case the richness of the record, and its consistency, permit some unusually confident judgments, in my opinion. The issue has aroused sufficient interest to merit a separate discussion, presented elsewhere, which I will only summarize here. The basic story that emerges from the historical and documentary record seems to me, in brief, as follows.⁶³

⁵⁹ Foreign Relations of the United States, Vietnam, 1961-1963, I, 343; III, 4n. Gibbons, US Government, 70-1, citing Air Force history.

⁶⁰ Albert, Z magazine, Dec., 1991; Cockburn, LAT, Dec. 5; Nation, Dec. 23, 1991.

⁶¹ See ch. 2.1-2. Tonkin Gulf, MC, 5.5.1; and RC. On timing, see Foreign Relations of the United States, Vietnam, 1964-1968, 609.

⁶² One speculation is that in Vietnam, Kennedy might have leaned towards an enclave strategy of the type advocated by General Maxwell Taylor and others or a Nixonian modification with intensified bombing and murderous "accelerated pacification" but many fewer US ground combat forces; while at home, he might not have proceeded so vigorously with Johnson's "Great Society" programs.

⁶³ See my article "Vain Hopes, False Dreams," Z magazine, October 1992, and for a much more extensive review and discussion, see Rethinking Camelot. Sources already cited, and others in the dissident literature, gave a generally accurate picture as events proceeded, requiring little modification in the light of what is now known. For a summary, see MC.