The American Empire has been in place since the end of World War II, yet the press has done a fantastic job of hiding its existence. Only in recent years, and only with the military adventures of George W. Bush, did the media trot out the American Empire meme. Within this empire is the battle of Red Empire vs. Blue Empire, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff pitted against the State Department. As in any empire, Americans fight imperial wars of choice around the provinces and periphery with the assistance of natives, and after the conflicts, refugees on the losing side of the proxy wars are relocated to America as a reward.
These sides fight proxy wars around the globe, which recently have been best exemplified by Pentagon-armed Syrian rebels fighting CIA-armed and State-fed Syrian rebels. The classic example of this conflict is Vietnam. Kept out of much coverage of Vietnam is how the State Department tried to end the Vietnam War in 1963. The CIA was involved, as well, and this hints at where the CIA falls in the Red vs. Blue grand battle. While the CIA is a bit of an independent actor, its roots are in blue institutions, and its aims are often aligned with State.
The Vietnam War was a conflict of the decolonization era that after French disentanglement, America was involved with for roughly twenty years. In the middle of the long conflict, President Kennedy made several mistakes, chief among them being the loss of Laos that aided the Viet Cong by leaving the Ho Chi Minh trail open for business. Debated greatly, and considered either a terrible decision or a great change by opposing sides, was President Kennedy’s greenlighting of the Diem assassination.
By the time of Diem’s assassination, America’s involvement had grown from under 1000 advisors to nearly 16,000 advisers. President Kennedy had seen the Vietnam mission grow and been told by the American military advisers that progress was being made. In his other ear, the State Department was constantly saying that Diem was the problem, his brother was too harsh on dissidents, and that a political solution was needed for the political problem of South Vietnam.
The tension in Vietnam was constant and high as during 1963 there was a Buddhist protest movement. The Diem government was heavily Catholic and represented the landlord class more than any other. The Buddhists practiced civil disobedience and objected to the Diem political regime. This was glowingly reported by the American press and used by State as evidence that the Diems needed to go. The Diems cracked down on the Buddhists and executed raids on the Xa Loi Pagoda. This was a supposed sovereign trying to restore order in its internal affairs. They did not know that this is not the case when one is a client of the American Empire.
There was confusion about who perpetrated the atrocity that injured and killed possibly hundreds. Was it the regular Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), or was it special units linked to the NGO inner circle? It eventually was discovered to be an NGO operation, and the NGOs should have seen the set up coming, since CIA funded the special forces that carried out the operation. CIA knew and carefully framed it so that the ARVN generals, who CIA was cultivating for its potential coup, were in the clear. Aid to South Vietnam was also cut in a move familiar to many clients that angered the Blue Empire.
State used this as a final straw and example of why the Vietnam mission needed new local leadership. State and CIA just happened to have that new local leadership ready to install. Undersecretary of State George Ball, who was always trying to hand Vietnam to the communists, drafted the famous Cable 243 that sealed the NGO’s fate. Senior officials drafted the cable while the Secretary of Defense and CIA director were on vacation. Secretary of State Rusk was seen in the Kennedy administration as a weaker figure, and the real power was wielded by others. These State officials created the telegram, which received sign off without ever crossing Secretary of Defense McNamara’s or Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Taylor’s desk.
The cable went out and the coup planning, logistics, and networking proceeded. Before Kennedy’s fateful day in Dallas, Diem was removed from power and assassinated along with his brother. The Red Empire was angry with the Blue Empire’s feat and did not waste time in reacting. As South Vietnam became more chaotic and the government more ineffective, the American commander in Vietnam pulled off a counter-coup in 1964. This is known as Harkin’s Revenge. While performed by Vietnamese generals, it had heavy American military involvement, being referred to as “The Pentagon’s Coup.” The CIA showed its independent actor stripes with this coup, as the CIA knew of this coup, but did not warn officials back in D.C. Figures from this coup would be very pro-American and anti-communist, with President Thieu maintaining leadership right up to the fall of Saigon.
It would be a decade more of fighting, but what of the claim that State tried to end the Vietnam War in 1963? Who did the State Department support in the 1963 coup and install? Minh. Aid was resumed to South Vietnam with Minh at the helm. What was Minh doing in his three months of rule? Per La Wik:
During the three months of his rule, Minh, his civilian Prime Minister Nguyen Ngoc Tho, and his leading military colleagues, Generals Trần Văn Đôn and Lê Văn Kim, attempted to defeat the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) non-militarily. They felt that a battleground victory was impractical or impossible and pursued a strategy of trying to politically integrate the insurgents into the mainstream. This meant an intensification of rural non-military initiatives and a reduction in armed operations.
State had found a puppet who would not fight the VC and who would bring their “face” figures into the government. If one knows of the post-World War II era of Eastern European coalition governments with communist involvement, one knows how this would have gone. A Mutt and Jeff act would have followed the ’63 coup. The Viet Cong would have continued terrorism and fighting as their polite face figures would have pressed for more political power.
As Minh’s entire cover for power was national liberation, they could have picked up allies and swallowed them whole shortly. South Vietnam would have endured political theater until the vote for union with the North or purely would have gone full communist on its own.
No war. No Tonkin Gulf. No campus protests in America. No guns to drain the treasury as half of LBJ’s guns ‘n’ butter programs. No Nixon comeback. It was not to be, though, because the Red Empire was not aware of the Blue Empire’s goal. If they were, the Red Empire fought a long effort to deny Blue that victory. Blue needed to use all of its resources at home to win the domestic political battle, despite any military advances. Even if South Vietnam seemed stable, persuasion and propaganda was needed to shut off military aid and doom Thieu’s regime.
Those resources and propaganda had to cajole or force an American president to overcome the fear of losing a nation as Truman lost China and had to realize that the domino effect was not real. The State plan in 1963 may have worked and spared a lot of pain and suffering, but had it worked, it may have kicked off a whole new round of “Who Lost X” as China had spurred on Senator McCarthy. That was Blue’s weakness and one they needed to keep hidden and still do, which is: why is it that America’s Third World opponents seem to succeed and receive copious amounts of material, training, education, and support from the various left-wing institutions of America?
The guns the military industrial complex exports are nothing compared to Harvard’s exports.