Account of an unlikely return.

• Author: Mattox, Henry
• Position: George W. Ball's policy on Vietnam during the 1960s

Editor's Note: Another time, another conflict, different participants, but one readily sees similarities with current controversies at least in outline in this story, decades ago, of one opposed to an unpopular war. The author, a British scholar, develops his thesis along the lines of a nuanced, phased--if not to say sometimes inconsistent--opposition by the official under study.--Ed.

The issue of dissent in American diplomatic history is an intrinsically important one. Officials who opposed the foreign policy of the president under whom they served helped to define the range of options considered in the crafting of United States diplomacy, revealed the different choices presidents could have made, and in some cases challenged the assumptions underpinning the policies that were carried out. One of the most prominent dissenting U.S. officials in the Cold War epoch was George W. Ball.

The role played by George Ball in contesting American policy in Vietnam during the 1960s has received much praise over the years. As is well known, Lyndon Baines Johnson's under secretary of state disagreed with the policy of escalation in Vietnam and ultimately the decision made by Johnson in July 1965 to go to war. Given the calamity that the war would become--more than 58,000 Americans dead, a presidency crippled, a nation divided, and a credibility-sapping defeat on the world stage-Ball's dissent seemed commendable. His arguments against the war turned out to be sound, and he was willing to stand alone when the rest of Johnson's advisers were urging escalation. Ball was prescient and courageous, therefore, even heroic. Not surprisingly, those who have written on Ball's dissent over Vietnam have found much to admire. (1)

This article seeks to offer a fresh interpretation of Ball's role. While he did succeed in articulating a number of cogent arguments against U.S. policy in Vietnam, and did take a clear stand against going to war in those crucial July 1965 meetings with Johnson and other senior officials, his opposition was inconsistent. At most of the key moments in terms of the deepening of American involvement in Vietnam before July 1965, Ball did not demur. Indeed on two occasions--in the summers of 1963 and of 1964--he was active in enlarging the U.S. commitment in that part of the world. Hence, with Ball's protest over Vietnam, it was a case of too little, too late.

The story of Ball's dissent centers on the Johnson years, but the prologue took place during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. By 1960 Ball had become a notable figure in the Democratic Party. Having spent his early years in Iowa and Illinois, with time in Washington as an evaluator of the American bombing against Germany during World War II, Ball in the 1950s became one of the chief supporters of Adlai E. Stevenson as his old friend from Illinois sought the presidency. Kennedy initially appointed Ball under secretary of state for economic affairs, but in November 1961 JFK promoted him to under secretary of state, as a replacement for Chester B. Bowles.

Ball soon developed reservations about American involvement in Vietnam. His work as a lawyer after World War II had often taken him to Paris. As a result he became well informed on the French defeat in Vietnam. He came to fear that the United States would repeat the mistakes made by France in Southeast Asia. Ball's overall conceptualization of American foreign policy also shaped his outlook. He strongly believed that Washington should concentrate on relations with Europe, not with Asia and Africa. The idea that the United States could successfully carry out a policy of nation-building in the Third World was, he felt certain, a chimera. Thus Ball was sceptical about the idea that Vietnam should become a focus for American foreign policymakers.

Ball expressed his concern over this issue in November 1961. Following a proposal from General Maxwell D. Taylor and Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow to dispatch combat troops to Vietnam, Ball spoke candidly to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and Roswell L. Gilpatric, the deputy secretary at the Pentagon:

[W]e must not commit forces to South Vietnam or we would find ourselves in a protracted conflict far more serious than Korea. The Viet Cong were mean and tough, as the French had learned to their sorrow, and there was always danger of provoking Chinese intervention as we had in Korea.... The Vietnam problem was not one of repelling overt invasion but of mixing ourselves up in a revolutionary situation with strong anticolonialist overtones.(2)

A few days later Ball took his case to JFK. "Within five years we'll have three hundred thousand men in the paddies and jungles [of Vietnam] and never find them again," he warned the president, if the Taylor-Rostow proposals were implemented. Ball also emphasized the precedent of the French defeat in Vietnam. Kennedy seemed unimpressed by Ball's arguments: "George, you're just crazier than Hell.... That just isn't going to happen."(3)

That represented the extent of Ball's dissent during the Kennedy years. He attended twenty-five meetings on Vietnam with Kennedy, but not once did he speak out as he had in November 1961. He was equally reserved with JFK in their various phone conversations on Vietnam. Ball's dissent in November 1961, therefore, was an anomaly.(4)

This raises the issue of why Ball kept his feelings under wraps, despite harboring deep reservations about the direction of American policy in Southeast Asia. The reason for his reticence was that he had no desire to become isolated in the Kennedy administration, a figure whose unconventional views relegated him to the periphery of Camelot. Unlike other Cold War dissenters, such as Henry A. Wallace during the early part of Harry S. Truman's presidency, Ball was an adroit politician. If necessary, he would bite his tongue in order to preserve his influence within the administration. In resisting U.S. escalation in Vietnam, he would choose his moments carefully--and only occasionally.

Not only did Ball provide no sustained dissent while JFK was in the White House, he played a significant role in the late summer of 1963 in entrenching the United States further in Vietnam. By this point Ball had aligned himself with officials such as State Department officials Roger Hilsman and W. Averell Harriman, who believed that the removal of Diem, America's ally in South Vietnam since the mid-1950s, might well be needed if a popular Saigon government capable of diminishing the appeal of the communists were to be established. Diem's suppression of the Buddhists that summer, thought to have been encouraged by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, fortified Ball's belief that Diem should be ousted unless he distanced himself from Nhu.(5)

On August 24, 1963, Ball got the opportunity to act on this conviction. With JFK, McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and CIA Director John A. McCone all out of Washington, a telegram arrived from Henry Cabot Lodge, the U.S. ambassador in Saigon, reporting the imminence of a coup by South Vietnamese generals against Diem. Ball seized the moment by endorsing (with a few modifications) a reply to Lodge, composed by Harriman and Hilsman, that said if Diem did not part company with Nhu, the Kennedy administration would not discourage those generals plotting Diem's overthrow. Ball also phoned the president to procure his approval of the telegram, which was forthcoming once the backing of Rusk and Gilpatric had been secured. The telegram was dispatched.(6)

Once Kennedy, McNamara, Rusk et al returned to Washington, the idea soon crystallized that Ball, Hilsman, and Harriman had been reckless. McNamara, for instance, wondered whether any other leader would prove more able than Diem. But Ball was in no mood for backing down. On August 28 he told his colleagues: "We had no option but to back a coup. We are already beyond the point of no return. The question is how do we make this coup effort successful." When McNamara...