Blowtorch

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President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, meeting with Robert Komer on November 16,
1967, in the Oval Office (LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto, White House Photo Office
Collection)

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Blowtorch
Robert Komer, Vietnam, and American Cold War Strategy

by Frank Leith Jones

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

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Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
2013 by Frank Leith Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Frank Leith.
Blowtorch : Robert Komer, Vietnam, and American Cold War strategy /
by Frank Leith Jones.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61251-228-0 (hbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61251229-7 (ebook) 1. Komer, Robert, 1922-2000. 2. National security
United StatesHistory20th century. 3. United States. Military
Assistance Command, Vietnam. Civil Operations and Rural Development
SupportBiography. 4. Vietnam War, 1961-1975United States
Biography. 5. United StatesArmed ForcesVietnamCivic action.
6. Intelligence officersUnited StatesBiography. 7. National Security
Council (U.S.)Officials and employeesBiography. 8. United States.
Dept. of DefenseOfficials and employeesBiography. 9. United
StatesMilitary policyDecision making. 10. Cold War. I. Title. II.
Title: Robert Komer, Vietnam, and American Cold War strategy.
UA23.J645 2013
355.0092dc23
[B]
2012044954
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Printed in the United States of America.
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
First printing

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To Sharon

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction

PART ONE Toward the New Frontier

Chapter 1

A Man of Proper Ambition

Chapter 2

Pragmatic New Frontiersman

30

Chapter 3

Komers War

51

Chapter 4

Our India Enterprise

71

PART TWO Lyndon Johnsons Man

Chapter 5

Pacification Czar

Chapter 6

A New Thrust to Pacification

93
113

Chapter 7 In Country

134

Chapter 8 Taking Off

152

Chapter 9 The Year of the Monkey

170

Chapter 10 The Old Fox Gets Fired

190

PART THREE Revival and Departure

Chapter 11 A New Transatlantic Bargain

215

Chapter 12 Pentagon Policymaker

234

Chapter 13 The Sin of Unilateralism

248

Chapter 14 The Wisdom of Hindsight: Vietnam Reassessed

267

Conclusion

283

Notes

289

Bibliography

363

Index

391

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Acknowledgments

upreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once remarked that gratitude

is one of the least articulate of emotions, especially when it is deep.
In writing this book, I have incurred many debts that I can never
repay, but it is a pleasure to express my gratitude to the many people who
helped me in this enterprise. They opened doors and guided my path over
the past several years, and without them, I would not have been successful.
I want to thank my current and former colleagues at the U.S. Army
War College for their support, encouragement, guidance, and interest in
my work: Boone Bartholomees, Jim Embrey, Len Fullenkamp, Nat Freier,
Jim Helis, Mike Neiberg, Charles Van Bebber, Tony Williams, and Rich
Yarger. I am particularly grateful to Paul Kan and Janeen Klinger, who
refined my thinking about the intricacies of international relations theory
and its application to U.S. foreign policy. I also want to thank four outstanding scholarsAnthony Joes, Richard Immerman, Richard Hunt,
and Andrew Prestonfor their counsel and their willingness to work with
me and to share their thoughts regarding the Vietnam War, the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations, and the role of strategists in envisioning the
implementation of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. Philip Nguyen
(Ngyuyen Ky Phong), a valued friend and a historian of the Vietnam War
in his own right, pointed me to useful bibliographic sources and served as
an essential sounding board for my ideas.
I am also thankful for the assistance I received from librarians, archivists, and historians who guided my research, suggested possible sources of
information, and helped me navigate the bureaucratic mazes that can often
impede progress. In particular, I appreciate the help of Bohdan Kohutiak
ix

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x Acknowledgments

and the staff at the U.S. Army War College Library, David Keogh and the
staff at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Regina Greenwell and staff
at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Stephen Plotnick and
the staff at the John F. Kennedy Library, Susan Lemke and the staff at the
National Defense Universitys library, and Dale Andrade at the U.S. Army
Center of Military History. I also received skilled and efficient assistance
from the staffs at the Library of Congress and the libraries of Georgetown
University, the George Washington University, Penn State Universitys
Dickinson School of Law, and Harvard University as well as those at the
Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center at Air University, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense Historians Office, the U.S. Senate Historians
Office, and the publications staff at the RAND Corporation. I want to
express my appreciation to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation for providing a Moody Grant, which allowed me to conduct extensive research in
the Johnson archives.
Several people who knew Robert Komer graciously gave me time from
their schedules to speak with me. Douglas Komer, Robert Komers son,
was of invaluable help and provided me a copy of his fathers unpublished
memoir. Several others shared their recollections with me or furnished useful background information about the periods of Komers government service, including George Allen, Francis Bator, Richard Boverie, Harold P.
Ford, Hank Gaffney, P. X. Kelley, David Newsom, William Odom, Harold
Saunders, Michael Sheridan, Christopher Shoemaker, Walter Slocombe,
James A. Thomson, and Peter Swartz.
Parts of this book were published previously in Parameters and Imperial
Crossroads: The Great Powers and the Persian Gulf. I thank the editors of
these publications for allowing me to reproduce some of the material here.
I am especially indebted to Jeffrey Macris, the editor of the latter, for recommending me to the Naval Institute Press. At the Naval Institute Press,
I am fortunate to have Adam Kane as both my advocate and as an accomplished editor of this work. He read the manuscript with a vision of what
it could be, and with his encouragement, it improved incalculably. Also at
Naval Institute Press, I want to thank Claire Noble and Marlena Montagna
for guiding me through the marketing and production processes, and Julie
Kimmel, who as copy editor not only improved my prose but also pressed
me to clarify my thoughts and arguments.
Lastly, I owe my wife, Sharon, a depth of thanks that cannot be measured or repaid. She is a superb reader and editor, sometimes my toughest

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Acknowledgmentsxi

critic, but she always wanted what was best for me as I labored on this manuscript. I appreciate her patience and efforts on my behalf, large and small,
without which this book would not have been realized.

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Introduction

n March 1996 the historian Douglas Brinkley, a thirty-five-yearold professor at the University of New Orleans and the author
of three books, including biographies of two giants in American
Cold War history, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and the first secretary of
defense, James Forrestal, strolled into the lobby of the Cantigny Conference
Center in Wheaton, Illinois. He was there to participate in a conference on
the Vietnam War sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the McCormick
Tribune Foundation. The next day he would chair a panel titled Lyndon
Johnsons War, named for the title of a book that one of the panelists,
Professor Larry Berman, had written to substantial critical acclaim.1
As a young scholar from a different generation, Brinkley felt that one of
the benefits of such a conference was the opportunity to meet for the first
time the men whose memoranda and memoirs he had been reading for
years as part of his research. He soon spied one of the officials who had been
intimately involved in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy
during the Vietnam WarRobert W. Komer. The septuagenarian Komer
was a participant on Brinkleys panel, so the professor strode over to introduce himself. After making his introduction, Komer replied, So youre the
ass whos moderating me tomorrow. Brinkley was taken aback a little bit
by this pugnacious and rude response, but the reason for it soon became
apparent. Komer told him that he had just learned that Brinkley expected
him to give a speech at tomorrows panel. He was not prepared to give a formal address on such short notice, and he held Brinkley personally responsible for not informing him of this requirement beforehand. After all, Komer
snarled, he had not heard from Brinkley since he first contacted him about
1

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2 Introduction

serving as a panelist. The conversation ended abruptly with that remark,

but the exchange did not end there.2
The following day Brinkley had his say as the panel chair. After thanking
the sponsors of the conference for the opportunity and commending them
for convening a forum on the Vietnam War that would examine the latest
scholarship, Brinkley proceeded to tell the audience about his encounter with
Komer the previous day. If his recounting of the incident was a maneuver to
shame Komer publicly, it was a failure. Komer would have the last word
and did so as the opening panelist. He began by remarking that now that
Brinkley had confessed, he could tell the rest of the story. Then he scolded
Brinkley for being an inferior moderator. Komer admitted to the audience,
however, that he had not prepared remarks even after learning of his responsibility. He was enjoying the hospitality of the conference too much. He had
a couple of rum and tonics before dinner, followed by wine with dinner,
and then a few more drinks after dinner. He had been in no shape to write a
speech after all that, so he had jotted down some notes on a small telephone
pad the hotel furnished when he awoke that morning. Then Komer made
a confession of his own: he could not read his own handwriting. The audience laughed, and Komer launched into a rambling, often vague discussion
of Lyndon Johnson and a dozen other topics.3 It was a distressing valediction
for a man who had once been at the pinnacle of political power.
Anyone in the audience who witnessed Komers performance would
have perceived him as a fumbling, peevish old man, nearly inarticulate and
unable to focus on the matter at hand. However, as many of the scholars
and Vietnam-era civilian policymakers and generals in the audience knew,
the real Komer was the one Brinkley had met in the lobby the day earlierprickly, irascible, and abrasive, but always in command, always willing to speak without reservation, his thoughts expressed directly, interlaced
with curses and profanity. Brinkley had learned firsthand another feature of Komers personality, which Komers colleague McGeorge Bundy,
the national security adviser to President John F. Kennedy and President
Lyndon Baines Johnson, once remarked uponhe had an exemplary
instinct for the jugular.4

This book is an attempt to recover a mans career as an influential national

security professional during a crucial period of the twentieth century
the Cold War. Komer is a member of a group of officials often lost in the

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Introduction 
3

biographies of presidents and cabinet officers or the political and administrative histories of presidential administrations: second echelon officials
who were the authors and implementers of American foreign policy during this era.5 In a more exact and focused sense, this book is history from
the middle.6
History has largely ignored Robert Komer. Perhaps his association with
an unpopular war as an adviser to President Lyndon Johnson and as head
of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts under Gen. William Westmoreland in
Vietnam explains the omission. Perhaps his brash self-confidence, which
earned him many enemies, accounts for it. His moniker, Blowtorch, was
an apt description of his aggressive personality. U.S. ambassador to South
Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. conferred the nickname on him, relating
to a group of newspaper reporters that Komers resolute determination to
have the direction of his superiors carried out was akin to having a blowtorch aimed at the seat on ones pants.7 Nonetheless, because he was such
a colorful character, Komer assumes a number of cameo roles in various
books, often reduced to caricature, a self-important sycophant, or a person
so outlandishly optimistic that he is of no importance other than to serve as
comic relief or a symbol of American hubris.8
The facts are far different, but two difficulties confront the biographer
in recovering Komers life and work. He left no cache of letters, diary, or
journal of his experiences, and his unpublished memoirs are lifeless. As a
longtime member of the U.S. intelligence community, his secretiveness is
understandable, and he was not a man given to philosophical musings. We
attain only a glimpse of his personality and activities through the numerous
interviews that historians and journalists conducted with him, principally
covering his responsibilities concerning the Vietnam War, and what others said about him. It is only in the official memoranda, cables, and other
government documents as well as the books and articles he wrote where his
voice is clearest.
The other difficulty in recovering Komers career is that he assumed
multiple roles during the Cold War in which he had a major influence on
U.S. national security policy and strategy in addition to shaping public discourse on defense matters. In this respect, he differs from many of his contemporaries. The historian John Prados argues that most of the leading
national security officials of the 1960sand this contention is likely true of
the entire Cold War periodwere administrators, not innovators and initiators.9 Fewer still were strategists.

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4 Introduction

McGeorge Bundy, as an example, seldom operated based on a carefully thought-out diplomatic strategy. Kennedy and Johnsons secretary of
defense, Robert McNamara, in his exuberance over the Kennedy administrations staring down the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis as the
two nations stood on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, went so far as to
declare, There is no longer such a thing as strategy; there is only crisis management.10 Apocryphal or not, this remark is the utterance of a technician,
for as Gen. John Galvin pointed out, a strategist comprehends the complexity of the international environment and the human dimension, appreciates the constraints of the use of force, and discerns what is achievable and
what is not achievable by military means.11
Presidents were often of a similar cast. Kennedy and Johnson, the
two presidents Komer served directly, did not evince an interest in strategy, approve an overarching strategy, or even direct that a major review of
U.S. strategy be conducted. Jimmy Carter, in whose administration Komer
served, was another president without a larger, strategic design.12 This is not
surprising. As Colin Gray observes, The politician is a person untrained in
strategic analysis.13
Komer is also an exception to Prados contention. His strategic vision
is most perceptible in his proposals regarding U.S. policy toward the socalled neutralists, the states that did not align themselves ideologically with
the United States or the Soviet Union. In sharpening this vision, Komer
was unlike many of his colleagues, some of whom have been accused of not
questioning the basic American ideological design for the Cold War: that
the world was divided into two basic hostile camps; that the free world
was the area synonymous with U.S. strategic interests; that every outpost
of freedom, no matter how insignificant in itself, must be denied to the
Communists or the entire free world would be threatened.14 Komer was
not a cold warrior in the pejorative meaning of that term; he did not see the
strategic environment in simplistic, bipolar, and Manichean distinctions.
As a strategist, he had to be cognizant of American strategic culture
and its values and ideals to create a strategy consistent with national experience so that it achieved the domestic consensus necessary for political
backing. Thus, he was a pragmatist. As the fabled strategist Bernard Brodie
noted, pragmatism is a habit of thinking, and since strategy is essentially
the pursuit of success in certain types of competitive endeavor, a pragmatic
approach is the only appropriate one. Thus, one weighs a strategic concept
or idea by investigating as thoroughly as possible the factors necessary to its

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Introduction 
5

successful operation, as well as the question whether those factors do in fact

exist or are likely to exist at the appropriate time. This inevitably involves
one in a good deal of detailed study, preferably over a whole range of relevant and important variablespolitical, technological, geographic, etc.15
No doubt, in subscribing to such an approach, fraught with the challenge of discerning the topography of the constantly changing global
environment, its threats, and opportunities, Komer made mistakes in perception and, consequently, in the advice he furnished presidents and other
officials on policies to advance U.S. national interests. This flaw lies partially within the strategy-making process itself, relying as it does on human
agency with all the frailties inherent in such an enterprise. Furthermore, as
one practitioner-scholar has noted, The impediments to even adequate,
let alone superior, strategic accomplishment are so numerous and so potentially damaging that there is little room for skepticism over the proposition
that the strategists profession is a heroic one.16
Historians and political scientists sometimes forget that policy and the
plan to execute it, that is, a strategy, occur in a setting fraught with chance,
uncertainty, contingency, and an imperfect ability on the part of governments to mold or direct results. They examine the outcome of foreign policy
decisions, shaped by such a vision, and with hindsight bias, state categorically that the senior officials should have realized the likely outcome or that
based on the facts available it was doomed to failure. But not to act or to
grasp an opportunity is to accept the status quo, to take no risks in an intrinsically unstable international system in which the vital interests of the nation
are at stake is not simply negligent or mere carelessness and disregard, it is
reckless and irresponsible, a dereliction of duty.
Robert Komer never neglected his duties, as that would have undermined his very conception of himself as a professional. He was a capable,
imaginative, and successful practitioner of the strategic art, a distinct discipline that U.S. Army lieutenant general Richard Chilcoat broadly defined
as the skillful formulation, coordination, and application of ends (objectives), ways (courses of action), and means (supporting resources) to promote and defend the national interests. Chilcoat emphasized that masters
of the strategic art not only understand the interrelationships among the
domains of strategy (military, diplomatic, economic, and informational),
but by employing skills developed during the course of a lifetime of education, service and experience, they can competently integrate and combine the three roles performed by the complete strategist: strategic leader,

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6 Introduction

strategic practitioner, and strategic theorist.17 According to Chilcoat, the

strategic leader furnishes vision and focus as well as inspires or influences
others to think and act. The strategic practitioner formulates and implements strategic plans derived from policy guidance, employs force and
other dimensions of military power, and unifies military and nonmilitary
activities through command and peer leadership skills. Finally, the strategic
theorist develops strategic concepts but also teaches or mentors the strategic art, influencing others through his ideas and treatises.18
From 1947 to 1981, with the exception of an eight-year interval, Komer
held a number of significant government positions, including several highranking offices. These appointments, signifiers of trust and confidence, are
also indicative of his capacity to enter the inner circles of government and
make himself essential to presidents and other senior officials. He achieved
a reputation as the person who could formulate a strategy that would harness the elements of national power to achieve policy objectives and then
vigorously and doggedly pursue its implementation. His experiences, both
in war and peace, as well as his education and a demanding course of selfstudy give lie to the estimation that he was merely a self-promoting paper
pusher or pompous buffoon. In that eight-year hiatus from government
work and after his public service, he became a leading defense intellectual, teaching undergraduate and graduate students, lecturing, and writing
numerous articles and essays, opinion pieces, and two books. These accomplishments merit him being designated a master of the strategic art.

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