Lost crusader? Chester L. Cooper and the Vietnam War, 1963–68

Abstract

Chester Cooper was the noted author of The Lost Crusade: The United States in Vietnam (1970), but his role as a Vietnam policymaker has been unduly overlooked. Working for the CIA and for the National Security Council under Kennedy and Johnson, he grew disenchanted with American policy and sought to inhibit the US military role in Vietnam. He then joined the State Department to seek a negotiated peace. In exploring Cooper's involvement in the Vietnam War, the article fills a gap in the literature and addresses questions of military strategy, decision-making, the prospects of a negotiated peace, and internal dissent.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Martin Alexander, John Prados, Michael Palliser, Jake Widén and the anonymous referees for their valuable help with this article.

Notes

Jonathan Colman is a Lecturer in International History at the University of Salford. He is the author of The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson: The United States and the World, 1963–68 (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), and of numerous articles in refereed journals.

  [1] Preston, The War Council, 8.

  [2] The material in this section is from the author's telephone interview with Sir Michael Palliser, 15 June 2010; Cooper, In the Shadows of History; Cooper, The Lost Crusade.

  [3] Cooper to Brown, 27 October 1964, PREM 13/106, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey (TNA).

  [4] Jeffrys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 144.

  [5] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 16.

  [6] Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 211.

  [7] Historians favourable to Diem include Hammer, A Death in November; Hatcher, The Suicide of an Elite; Moyar, Triumph Forsaken. Those with doubts include Anderson, Trapped by Success, 132–3; Catton, Diem's Final Failure, 210; Kahin, Intervention; De Groot, A Noble Cause, 84–7.

  [8] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 29.

  [9] Quoted in Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers,, 29, note 12.

 [10] Freedman, Kennedy's Wars, 369.

 [11] Chester L. Cooper oral history (OH) interview, 16 May 1966, conducted by Joseph E. O'Connor, John F. Kennedy Library (JFKL), Boston, Massachusetts.

 [12] Embassy Vietnam to State, 6 November 1963, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1961 –1963 IV, 577; Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 40, n. 35.

 [13] E.g. Kattenburg, The Vietnam Trauma, 117; Logevall, Choosing War, xx, 64; Schulzinger, A Time for War, 122.

 [14] Cooper to McCone, 6 December 1963, FRUS 1961–1963 IV, 680.

 [15] Cooper to McCone, 6 December 1963, FRUS 1961–1963 IV, 683; Cooper, Lost Crusade, 201; Prados, Keepers of the Keys, 202.

 [16] White House Staff Meeting, 30 March 1964, FRUS 1964–1968 I, 197; Forrestal to Bundy, 30 March 1964, FRUS 1964–1968 I, 201.

 [17] Cooper to Bundy, 10 December 1964, FRUS 1964–1968 I, 995; Cooper to Bundy, 19 November 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 575–6.

 [18] Prados, Keepers of the Keys, 203.

 [19] Cooper to George Brown, 27 October 1964, PREM 13/106, TNA.

 [20] See, e.g., Cooper to Bundy, 16 July 1964, Box 2, Name File, NSF, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL), Austin, Texas.

 [21] Pentagon Papers III, 210; Bird, The Color of Truth, 293; Preston, The War Council, 160–61.

 [22] For the intelligence panel's assessment, see Pentagon Papers III, 651–56.

 [23] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 57; Prados, Keepers of the Keys, 204–5.

 [24] Bundy to Cooper, 28 January 1966, Box 27, Country File Vietnam, NSF, LBJL.

 [25] The Pentagon Papers III, 255–6; State to Embassy Vietnam, 19 December 1964, FRUS 1964–1968 I, 1013; memorandum for the record, 5 January 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 9.

 [26] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 264–5.

 [27] Cooper to McCone, 6 December 1963, FRUS 1961–1963 IV, 682.

 [28] Cooper, ‘Fateful Day in Vietnam’, A14.

 [29] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 382; Bundy memo, 7 February 1965, Pentagon Papers III, 687.

 [30] Quoted in Prados, Vietnam, 112.

 [31] Langguth, Our Vietnam, 338–9.

 [32] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 72; Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 256–9.

 [33] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 72.

 [34] Pentagon Papers III, 309.

 [35] Quoted in Gibbon, The US Government and the Vietnam War, III, 51.

 [36] Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 74–5; Cooper, Lost Crusade, 258–9; Cooper paper, 6 January 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 34; Cooper to Bundy, 10 March 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 434.

 [37] Cooper to Bundy, 30 June 1965, Box 43, NSC Histories, NSF, LBJL.

 [38] Cooper to Bundy, 10 March 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 434.

 [39] In the first camp: Cable, Unholy Grail; Colby and McArgar, Lost Victory; Hunt, Pacification; Komer, Bureaucracy at War; Hackworth and Sherman, About Face; Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam. In the second camp: Davidson, Vietnam at War; Palmer, Summons of the Trumpet; Stanton, The Rise and Fall of an American Army; Summers, On Strategy.

 [40] Cooper to Bundy, 21 July 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 205; Cooper memorandum, 10 September 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 380–83.

 [41] Langguth, Our Vietnam, 356.

 [42] Cooper to Johnson, 25 May 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 687–8. The North Vietnamese called for (1) the withdrawal of all United States military forces from South Vietnam, (2) neutralisation of both South and North Vietnam, (3) a settlement of South Vietnam's internal affairs ‘in accordance with the program’ of the National Liberation Front, and (4) peaceful reunification.

 [43] Cooper and Thomson to Bundy, 29 June 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 73-5.

 [44] Preston, The War Council, 195.

 [45] Cooper to Bundy, 5 August 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 301; Preston, The War Council, 221; Bundy to Johnson, 27 November 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 582–4.

 [46] Preston, The War Council, 226.

 [47] Bundy to Cooper, 28 January 1966, Box 27, Country File Vietnam, NSF, LBJL.

 [48] Cooper to Bundy, 1 April 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 XXVII, 146-7.

 [49] Preston, The War Council, 194.

 [50] Carter, Inventing Vietnam, 273.

 [51] Quoted in Preston, The War Council, 50.

 [52] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 223; Brands, The Wages of Globalism, 21.

 [53] Humphrey, ‘NSC Meetings’, 29–45, 98; Rostow to Johnson, 5 December 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XXXIII, 407. See also Barratt, Uncertain Warriors, especially 172–89, on the advisory system and decision-making.

 [54] Quoted in Ford, ‘Why CIA Analysts Were So Doubtful’, 93–4. On Johnson's attitudes to intelligence reports, see also Colman, The Foreign Policy of Lyndon B. Johnson, 16–18.

 [55] Bundy to Rusk, 1 December 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 XXXIII, 342.

 [56] Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 231.

 [57] Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, 161–2; Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers, 48. More generally, see Milne, America's Rasputin.

 [58] Cooper, ‘How Intelligence Fared in the White House’. The notes of Cooper's paper are those of Professor Martin Alexander.

 [59] Cooper OH, conducted by Paige E. Mulhollan, 9 July 1969, LBJL.

 [60] Preston, The War Council, 110.

 [61] Rostow to Johnson, 10 August 1966, Cooper Memos, Box 2, Name File, NSF, LBJL.

 [62] Freedman, Kennedy's Wars, 401; Cooper, In the Shadows, 266; Herring, LBJ and Vietnam, 104; Cooper OH, 9 July 1969, LBJL.

 [63] Gibbon, The US Government and the Vietnam War, IV, 388–9.

 [64] Cooper to Bundy, 30 June 1965, Box 43, NSC Histories, NSF, LBJL.

 [65] Cooper OH, 9 July 1969, LBJL.

 [66] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 V, 448-9.

 [67] Cooper, ‘The Complexities of Negotiation’, 454–5, 459–60.

 [68] Quoted in Logevall, Choosing War, 367.

 [69] For documentation on the ‘Marigold’ peace channel, see Herring, The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War, 211–70.

 [70] Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 239.

 [71] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 IV, 776.

 [72] Memorandum of meeting, 10 November 1966, FRUS 1964–1968 IV, 821, 822.

 [73] See Hershberg, ‘Who Murdered “Marigold”?’ Hershberg suggests that the American bombing of Hanoi, the Poles for failing to push ahead ‘for an initial contact to break the ice’, and North Vietnamese lack of communication with the Poles. Memorandum of meeting, 10 November 1966, FRUS 1964–1968 IV,, 104. The North Vietnamese failure seems like the most decisive reason for the overall failure of the peace channel.

 [74] See e.g. Colman, A ‘Special Relationship’?, 122-32; Dumbrell and Ellis, ‘British Involvement in Vietnam Peace Initiatives, 1966–1967’; and Hughes, ‘A “Missed Opportunity” for Peace?’. There is also Cooper's account in The Lost Crusade, 350–68. For documentation, see Herring, The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War, 373–7.

 [75] Wilson–Bruce conversation, 10 January 1967, PREM 13/1917, TNA; Brandon, Anatomy of Error, 83; author's telephone interview with Sir Michael Palliser, 15 June 2010.

 [76] Editorial Note, FRUS 1964–1968 IV Vietnam, 1966 (1998), 658.

 [77] ‘Sunflower’, POL 27-14 Viet/Sunflower 2.21.67, Subject-Numeric 1967–69, National Archives and Record Administration, College Park, Maryland (NARA).

 [78] ‘Sunflower’, POL 27-14 Viet/Sunflower 2.21.67, Subject-Numeric 1967–69, NARA; Cooper OH by Paige E. Mulhollan, 7 August 1969, LBJL; Rostow to Johnson, ‘For the President's Diary’, 13 February 1967, Rostow Vol. 21 Feb. 12-28 1967 (2/2), Box 13, NSF: Memos to the President, LBJL.

 [79] Wheeler to McNamara, 11 February 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 V 1967, 135.

 [80] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 355–6.

 [81] Rostow to Johnson, 23 December 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 698.

 [82] Brandon, Anatomy of Error, 98.

 [83] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 378.

 [84] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 V, 654.

 [85] Brigham and Herring, ‘The PENNYSYLVANIA Peace Initiative, June October 1967’, 62.

 [86] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 378–9.

 [87] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 V, 448-9.

 [88] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 379.

 [89] Brigham and Herring, ‘The PENNYSYLVANIA Peace Initiative’, 64.

 [90] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 379.

 [91] Helms to Johnson, 7 September 1967, FRUS 1964-1968 V, 759-61.

 [92] Editorial note, FRUS 1964–1968 V, 837

 [93] Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 271; Cooper, ‘The Complexities of Negotiation’, 466.

 [94] Johnson, The Vantage Point, 510.

 [95] Palliser to Wilson, 21 April 1970, PREM 13/3547, TNA.

 [96] Halls to Wilson, 12 September 1969, PREM 13/3547, TNA.

 [97] Quoted in Schulzinger, ‘“It's Easy to Win a War on Paper”’, 194.

 [98] Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 242–3.

 [99] Logevall, Choosing War, 196.

[100] Cooper, ‘The Iron Law of Negotiations’.

[101] Cooper, ‘Peace – Or Elegant Disengagement?’.

[102] Cooper, Growth in America; Cooper, The Lion's Last Roar; Cooper, Energy, Environment and the Economy.

[103] Prados, Vietnam, n. 16, 571–2. See also Hoang, ‘Ex-Foes Meet to Come to Grips, not Blows’. The proceedings in Hanoi were published as McNamara with Blight, Argument Without End.

[104] Cooper, In the Shadows of History, 348.

[105] Harrison and Mosher, ‘John T. McNaughton and Vietnam’; Kattenburg, The Vietnam Trauma, 129–30; Milne, America's Rasputin, 184; Preston, The War Council, 184–5.

[106] Allen, None So Blind; Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers; Ford, ‘Why CIA Analysts Were So Doubtful’; Jeffrys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 147–8, 168–72.

[107] Kattenburg, Vietnam Trauma, 129–30; Preston, The War Council, 8.

[108] Cooper OH, 9 July 1969, LBJL.

[109] Prados, Vietnam, note 16, 571–2; Email correspondence from John Prados to author, 17 May 2010.

[110] Gardner introduction in Gardner, The Search for Peace, 3–4.

[111] Johnson–Harriman telephone conversation, 28 December 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 720.

[112] Cooper to Bundy, 10 March 1965, FRUS 1964–1968 II, 432.

[113] Bundy to Cooper, 28 January 1966, Vietnam Vol. 46 (2 of 2), Box 27, Country File Vietnam, NSF, LBJL.

[114] Bill, George Ball, 159.

[115] Ball, ‘Cutting Our Losses in South Vietnam’, undated, FRUS 1964–1968 III, 66. Also quoted in Bill, George Ball, 161–2.

[116] Cooper to Bundy, 30 June 1965, Box 43, NSC Histories, NSF, LBJL; Schulzinger, A Time for War, 177–8.

[117] Cooper, ‘The Complexities of Negotiation’, 466.