The publication
of portions of the Pentagon Papers despite President Nixon’s threats of treason
highlighted the fact that four presidents successively lied to the American
People on build-up of U.S. involvement in Indochina (most notably, Vietnam) and
the Nixon administration lied on the prospects for victory in the Vietnam War—a
war that had not even been declared by Congress. Clearly, democratic
accountable extends to foreign policy at least in broad outline, such as in
whether or not to continue an active engagement militarily in another region of
the world. Even in U.S. presidents being able to get away with effectively
declaring war even as one of their roles is that of commander-in-chief—a huge
conflict of interest!—democratic accountability by the popular sovereign, the
People—is important, even vital should the legislative and judicial branches fail
as checks in the separation-of-powers feature of the U.S. Constitution.
The first article
in the New York Times reported that the Truman, Eisenhower,
Kennedy, and Johnson administrations “built up the American political, military
and psychological stakes in Indochina, often more deeply than they realized at
the time, with large‐scale military equipment to the French in 1950; with acts
of sabotage and terror warfare against North Vietnam beginning in 1954; with
moves that encouraged and abetted the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of
South Vietnam in 1963; with plans, pledges and threats of further action that
sprang to life in the Tonkin Gulf clashes in August, 1964; with the careful
preparation of public opinion for the years of open warfare that were to
follow; and with the calculation in 1965, as the planes and troops were openly
committed to sustained combat, that neither accommodation inside South Vietnam
nor early negotiations with North Vietnam would achieve the desired result.”[1]
Meanwhile, the American electorate was being kept in the dark—lied to—in spite
of the fact that the People in a republic are tasked with holding the elected
representatives and their respective appointees accountable.
“The Pentagon
study also ranges beyond such historical judgments. It suggests that the
predominant American interest was at first containment of Communism and later
the defense of the power, influence and prestige of the United States, in both
stages irrespective of conditions in Vietnam.”[2]
The U.S. Government’s defense of the escalation, however, was limited to the
containment of Communism such that it would not take over the world as Marx had
foretold and thus threaten even the U.S. itself. During the Johnson and Nixon
administrations, American troops were being killed and taken prisoner increasingly
for the prestige of the United States and irrespective of the intractable conditions
on the ground in Vietnam. Crucially, these administrations kept the American
people in the dark on these points, such that no electoral correction could be
effected. Ironically, the administrations were claiming to protect democracy
even as they were undermining it by using power to subvert democratic
accountability by the popular sovereign (i.e., the electorate).
1. Neil
Sheehan, “Vietnam
Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement,” The New York Times, June 13, 1971.
2. Ibid.
