Supporting the ‘Worlds Most Self-Deluded Observers’: Understanding the Evolution of Conservative Movement’s Early Vietnam Positions

The historiography of the Vietnam War accounts for the American conservative movement’s support for the war, but rarely does it mention why the conservatives endorsed President Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of the war. In fact, the early period from 1964 through early-1965, when Johnson rapidly expanded the number of troops in Vietnam, is largely unexamined by the historiography of either the Vietnam War or the American Right. This presentation begins the process of analyzing the conservative movement’s complex set of emotions and ideas regarding the Vietnam War.

Rather than adamantly endorsing the war during the early years, most conservatives had serious reservations regarding the war. For instance, in a September 1964 National Review editorial the magazine admits that victory in Vietnam is unlikely to come quickly – if at all. It also derisively called President Johnson and his military officials “the world's most self-deluded observers.” This came on the heels of several months worth of apprehension within the conservative movement over the nature and viability of the war. In short, conservative were not convinced that the war in Vietnam was the right war in the right place.

Conservatives were some of the most deeply anti-communist Americans at the time, yet they disapproved of a war against communists until early-1965. This complexity is rarely discussed in the historiography largely because the movement eventually became some of the most adamant defenders of the war later on, but in the early years there was a lot of hesitation regarding the war. The reasons for this were wide ranging and included: the foreign policy belief that Vietnam was not strategically important enough, the political argument that Johnson was an incompetent military commander, and because there was no strong anti-communist South Vietnamese leadership to aid the American effort. All of those accounts contributed to a movement hesitant to support the Vietnam War.

The contemporary historiography about the start of the Vietnam War focuses on Johnson’s decisions for expanding the war and the domestic political pressure he felt to stand up to communism. This presentation seeks to complicate that narrative by incorporating the Right’s various beliefs about the war into the historiography. Combined with my dissertation, this will help provide historians with a more complete interpretation of the start of America’s largest Cold War proxy-battle.