This week (Feb. 13) in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson approved the first-ever sustained bombing campaign — codenamed “Rolling Thunder” — against Communist North Vietnam. It was a major turning point in the Vietnam War, but not a positive one for the U.S. government. Not only did it fail to achieve its objectives, it had long-term consequences detrimental to both America and its ally, South Vietnam.
The rationale for bombing North Vietnam was simple. South Vietnam’s military situation was deteriorating — the South Vietnamese army was corrupt, inefficient and suffering from ever-increasing desertions, while the North’s guerilla army, the Vietcong, was capturing and controlling the South Vietnamese countryside virtually at will. Thus President Lyndon Johnson thought bombing the North might convince its leaders to back off.
To say the least, there were many who vehemently disagreed. The Vietnam War was going badly not because of the military situation in the North, they argued, but because of the political situation in the South. At the time, South Vietnam was led by a military general, Nguyen Khanh, who had overthrown the previous military general, Duong Han Minh, who himself had overthrown South Vietnam’s president, Ngo Dinh Diem, all in a three-year span. So not only was the South Vietnamese government unstable, it also lacked support among its people, who were sick of both the war and their incompetent, ever-changing leaders. By contrast, North Vietnam’s government in Hanoi was stable, widely supported and determined.
So determined that most military analysts believed bombing the North would not negatively affect its war aims; if anything, it would make Hanoi more determined. Further, if Johnson thought bombing the North would hamper Hanoi’s ability to support the Vietcong in the South, he was misguided. Vietcong guerillas needed little support from Hanoi, in part because they could often count on the support of those war-weary South Vietnamese peasants in the countryside.
In addition, critics thought bombing the North would fundamentally change the international community’s view of the war. Up to that point most nations, certainly America’s allies, saw America’s role in Vietnam as essentially defensive — it was helping South Vietnam defend itself from incursions by the North’s Communist Vietcong. A bombing campaign, by contrast, would be viewed by both allies and adversaries as switching from defense to offense. Further, heavily bombing the North would be seen as indefensibly disproportional to any damage the North was inflicting on the South.
Finally, this worry above all: “Rolling Thunder” would put America at, or near, the point of no return. The chances of extricating itself from a war in which the United States had unmercifully bombed North Vietnam’s towns and cities, and killed many thousands of North Vietnamese people, would be reduced to about zero.
