Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies;
Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
From: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 6:43 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
Not often that I open the NYT and see a face which I once met .
Mr. Hughes spent most of the 1960s as the director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, which provided information and analysis to the rest of the State Department.
My father worked under him as the director of external research in the INR.
I understand much better now where my father's thinking came from.
At the age of 10 in 1964 I had strong opinions on some things but not yet on Vietnam. When Lyndon Johnson came on TV to talk about the Gulf of Tonkin incident my father yelled out. " That's a &%# lie" and threw his shoe at the TV set,
I will note that the INR later also spoke against the Iraq invasion.
If you cannot open the NYT link message me and I will copy the text and send it to you.
A few pieces of the article below.
Thomas Hughes, who as a State Department official and member of the Kennedy-era brain trust stood out for his deep skepticism over the Vietnam War
But he also stood in stark contrast to the McGeorge Bundys, Walt Rostows and other foreign-policy mandarins within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He came not from the East Coast establishment but from Midwestern stock, and his earliest political allegiances were to the progressive liberalism of Senator (and later Vice President) Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota.
After working as Humphrey’s legislative counsel in the 1950s, Mr. Hughes spent most of the 1960s as the director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, which provided information and analysis to the rest of the State Department. The job provided him a front-row seat to a host of foreign policy crises, including in Berlin and Cuba. But it was the slow boil in Southeast Asia that worried him the most.
While many in his cohort thought the United States had both the obligation and capacity to shape the conflict between North and South Vietnam, Mr. Hughes and his bureau were pessimistic. They pointed out that the South Vietnamese leadership was weak and unpopular, while the North was stronger and more determined than expected.
Things came to a boil in February 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson was considering a major bombing campaign, called Rolling Thunder, against the North Vietnamese
It was among the most prescient documents produced during the war — practically every prediction Mr. Hughes made came tragically to pass.
“I have my students read this memo,” Fredrik Logevall, a historian at Harvard and the author of “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam” (2012), said in a phone interview. “It’s an amazing document.”
Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
Among the last of the Kennedy era’s “best and brightest,” he later transformed the Carnegie Endowment into a lea...
And here is a link to the State Dept document mentioned in the article.
But I do not know if my father worked on this specific document.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume II, ...
history.state.gov 3.0 shell
Greg Nagle
PhD Forest and watershed science
Cornell University
Hanoi, Vietnam
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 8:58 AM
To: greg nagle <gnagle2000@yahoo.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
Greg and the VSG list,
It's fascinating that your father worked under Hughes at this time.
Lost in this obituary of Hughes is *WHY* Thomas Hughes was so convinced that US involvement in Vietnam would be foolish. Much of that is due to talented analysts at the bureau he lead. A very talented woman was in part one reason. A story on that . . .
When I first came to teach at George Washington University, I was asked to offer lectures at the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State, where US diplomats get language and area/ country training. I agreed. A request came to me: could another person attend my lecture? She is retired from the State Department. I said yes. The person turned out to be Dorothy "Dottie" Avery, Dottie Avery was a civilian employee, first as a CIA analyst, then, from 1960, as a researcher at INR -- the Bureau of Intelligence and Research -- at the Department of State. She was, at the time, the only analyst at the State Department focusing on "North Vietnam," i.e. the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
INR was often a contrasting voice, in those years, to the more optimistic arguments of the Department of Defense on the impact of US aid to the effectiveness of the Republic of Vietnam in stabilizing the country and in winning militarily. When I met her, Dottie Avery was trying to declassify a Top Secret analytic report she had been asked to co-author, and that came out in 1969, that retrospectively analyzed INR evaluations of Vietnam. Because the report essentially confirmed the pessimistic analysis of INR before and during the war, it was, not surprisingly, buried -- that is, until it was finally declassified. If you want to see it, here it is:
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB121/index.htm
In short, Thomas Hughes was right to be pessimistic about the effectiveness US intervention in Vietnam, and behind that pessimism was an array of talented analysts, including Dorothy Avery.
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
From: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 11:16 AM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
from NYT obit: "Those who talk about power are those who lack it themselves.
Power corrupts and lack of power corrupts absolutely." Thomas Hughes, 1981.
From: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 2:27 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
The document of Thomas Hugues was written after the fall of Ngo Dinh Diem with the approval of the Americans.
President Nixon would later say, « We made a crucial mistake in South Việt Nam in 1963. The Kennedy government, increasingly angry at President Diệm, encouraged and supported a military coup against his government. This shameful episode ended with the assassination of Diệm and was the beginning of a period of political chaos ». William Colby wrote: « The Americans, by sponsoring the over-throw of Diệm, which I still consider today to be the worst fault of the Việt Nam War...». What thought Dương Văn Minh, who ordered to kill Diệm, when he later knew that Nguyễn Hữu Thọ, the President of the FNLSVN, declared « the fall of the Ngô was for us a present from Heaven.[0]»?
In May 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm asked what the Americans wanted to do in Việt Nam and requested that 5,000 of their soldiers leave the country early in the summer of the same year.
It was not without reason, as the military situation had improved considerably with the new equipment received from the United States. On 17th May 17, 1963, the agreement on the financing of counter-insurgency, stated: « The current level of support and advisory effort is necessary, but in the light of the improved security and progress of the Programme of Strategic Hamlets (PHS) it is expected that foreign assistance, both in terms of men and equipment, would be gradually reduced ». An article of May 12 by the journalist Unna in the Washington Post quoted Nhu and his statement in an interview « South Việt Nam would like to see half of the 12,000 to 13,000 US military personnel present here leave ». Nhu had to deny these words and display a conciliatory attitude after the strong reaction of the American government.
Contacts with the North
At the same time, Ngô Đình Nhu made contact with the North, notably through a meeting in the district of Tánh Linh in the province of Bình Tụy with Phạm Hùng[1] (1912-1988), Deputy Prime Minister, responsible for the unification of the two regions since 1958 and former head of the North Việt Nam military delegation in Sài Gòn in the International Control Commission (ICC) established following the Geneva Agreements to monitor their implementation. He also passed through Mieczylaw Maneli, head of the Polish ICC delegation, who came to see him on 2nd September 1963 at the Gia Long Palace[2]. Nhu had discussed with some generals, among them general Dương Văn Minh (the “Big Minh”), about his conversation with Maneli. The latter had transmitted to him a proposal from the North-Vietnamese Prime Minister, Phạm Văn Đồng, to begin trade between the North and the South, and had made himself available to Nhu to fly to Hà Nội at any time. French Ambassador Lalouette also offered his services for the same purposes.
On 26th September 1963, more than a month before the coup that ended the brothers Ngô, there was a CIA report on the subject « Possible rapprochement between North and South Việt Nam.
It estimated that « the signs that the GVN [Government of the Republic of Việt Nam], the RDV [the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam i.e. the North] and the French were exploring possibilities of some kind of North-South rapprochement», which Joseph Alsop had indicated in his article of 18th September 1963 in the Washington Post, did not concern an imminent reunification, but rather « a ceasefire, a formal ceasefire or some variant of neutralization ». « Now, Nhu acknowledges contacts with the North and has dropped transparent hints that the GVN would not necessarily refuse to consider overtures from Hanoi […] there is the sufficient possibility of serious Ngo family interest in such latter rapprochement to merit continuing close attention. ».
Already, « in March 1962, Hồ Chí Minh indicated in an interview with Wilfred Burchett [known for his sympathy for the communists] his interest in a peaceful solution to the Vietnam problem [… and] in September [of the same year], the Indian Chairman of the ICC reported that Hồ had said that he was prepared to extend the hand of friendship to Diệm (“a patriot”) and that the North and South might initiate several steps toward a modus vivendi, including an exchange of members of divided families»[3]. This speech deserved to be analysed taking into account the perspective expressed by Hồ Chí Minh in the testament he left for posterity: the construction of Marxism-Leninism was his priority.[4]
Withdraw of 1000 “advisers” and… increase of US troops after Diệm assassination
The situation in mid-1963 was such that the NSAM (National Action Security Memorandum) No. 263 of 11th October 1963 planned to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963 and the end of 1965 for the withdrawal of all military personnel. Thus, the number of soldiers on Vietnamese soil decreased from 16,752 in October 1963 to 15,894 as of 31st December 1963.
All these were not what the Americans wanted. Some thought that they were involved in the Buddhist crisis behind Thich Trí Quang who took refuge in the US Embassy 70 days after the government repression and even in the assassination of Diệm and Nhu in 1963.
The witch hunt that followed the death of Diệm and Nhu, the dismantling of the network of their followers and their intelligence service, and the replacement of those they had appointed (province heads, town leaders, etc…) despite their experience of struggling in a difficult context, without enough competent people to replace them, the « democratization » wanted by the State Department and the Sài Gòn intellectuals, the catastrophic management of the situation by General Dương Văn Minh, weakened the regime. The movements and associations set up by Nhu were dismantled without anything else being put in place. In November and December 1963, the Thanh Niên Chiến Đấu (Fighting Youth) created by Nhu to defend the ấp chiến lược who, in many places, had shown their effectiveness, were demobilized for fear that they would not be loyal to the new government. All this created a vacuum that immediately benefited the Việt cộng for whom the death of Diệm was a miracle.
What did Thomas Hugues think and write about all those events before the death of Ngo Dinh Diem? Did he know that Ngo Dinh Diem even preferred to talk to North Viet Nam instead to accept a more important involvement of American troops in his country? ? Did he see the responsibilities of the Americans for what happened after Ngo Dinh Diem was killed?
[0] Việt Nam où est la vérité (Việt Nam where the truth is), Trương Vĩnh Lễ, prefaced by Jacques Chaban-Delmas, pub. Lavauzelle, 1989.
[1] Mủa hè máu lửa (Summer on fire and in blood), [general]Đổ Mậu,
[2] Thesis of Master's Degree, The Vietnam War: Lost or Won? Vũ Ngự Chiêu, University Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 1977, under the direction of Professor Richard D. Coy.
[3] FRUS, 1961-1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August-December 1963, D151.
[4] See 17.3. the will of Hồ Chí Minh.
[5] Việt Nam où est la vérité (Việt Nam where the truth is), Trương Vĩnh Lễ, prefaced by Jacques Chaban-Delmas, pub. Lavauzelle, 1989.
[6]Only 10% to 25% of the American troops fought, a large proportion was involved in logistics or administrative tasks.
Nguyễn Ngọc Châu (author of two books on the two Vietnamese wars (Independence war (1858-1954) and Ideological war (1945-1975))
Visitez mon site https://sites.google.com/view/nguyenngocchau/accueil
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 2:59 PM
To: Chau NGUYEN NGOC <yakiribocou@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
The function of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the State department at the time, and now, was not to make policy. Its task was to, given the ranges of possible policy options being considered, to *inform* policy decisions made by others with informed analysis.
One of the unfortunate aspects of American foreign policymaking, then and now, is how often, for momentous decisions, informed analysis has been ignored by leading policymakers.
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
From: John Hutnyk <johnhutnyk@tdtu.edu.vn>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2023 3:30 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Thomas Hughes, 97, Dies; Government Insider and Vietnam War Skeptic
Hi list,
Both Hughes and this additional story of Dorothy Avery are fascinating. And though we surely don't want to ever give the impression that all of America were sceptics against the war(s), there is also, alongside this story of Dottie, other spooks that were not wholly insane inside INR. I am interested in the anthropologist/OSS/INR Southeast Asia Branch Chief Cora Du Bois. I've not much on what she said about Vietnam, but she had ten years of FBI harassment for her troubles in warning the US off involvement early on (circa post WW2). If any of you better read old hands have more on her, especially related to Vietnam, please message me.
I've this from Susan Seymour's excellent bio of Cora - first tenured women chair of anthro at Harvard (Radcliffe):
In August 1944, working for the OSS/SCAC in Kandy, Du Bois was already advising Washington that South East Asia could be 'a potential bone of contention the future' (Memo cited in Seymour 2015:189)
In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy is reported to have held a list of 205 communist Party members working within the State Department, with Cora Du Bois number 60 that list (Seymour 2015:236)
Seymour, Susan C. (2015). Cora Du Bois: Anthropologist Diplomat, Agent, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Chúc mừng năm mới Tết Quý Mão 2023
John