Mike LaSusa

SIS600, Brenner
04-29-2015
Walt Whitman Rostow: the wrong man at the wrong place with the wrong idea
In the introduction to the anthology The Policy Makers, editor Anna Kasten Nelson argues that
the year 1961 marked the end of that era when secretaries of state held the primary position of
influence in foreign policy-making, as presidents began turning to their national security
assistants for advice1. One of the first was Walt Whitman Rostow. In his chapter on Rostow in
Nelsons volume, historian Lloyd Gardner fleshes out this proposition, arguing that Rostows
hawkeyed optimism and missionary zeal, combined with his reputation as a highlyintelligent brains trust2 and his close relationships with presidents John F. Kennedy and
especially Lyndon Johnson, all contributed to Rostows deep influence on U.S. policy regarding
the escalation of U.S. involvement in the conflict in Vietnam during the 1960s.
Other authors have come to similar conclusions as Gardner did about Rostows role during this
period and it is doubtful that even the late Rostow himself would contest Gardners basic
description of him as a hawkeyed optimist who, in Nelsons paraphrase, never lost his belief
that the war could be won3. However, Rostow would also likely admit that the eventual
implementation of policies he advocated depended upon the support of other high-level decisionmakers, especially the President. In Americas Rasputin, David Milne provides an analysis of
Rostows Vietnam legacy which informs much of this essay, in which he stresses that Rostows
was not a lone voice in advocating for a campaign of graduated bombing, his most
significant contribution to military strategy regarding U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia
during the 1960s4.
Rostows missionary zeal and unshakable confidence in his beliefs were constant features of
his personality throughout his life5. Rostows basic ideology, as Cold War scholar Odd Arne
Westad summarized it, held that as soon as a countrys natural development had been
perverted by a socialist revolution then only outside support (potentially entailing U.S. military
intervention) could relaunch that countrys trajectory toward capitalism and democracy6. The
Rostow Thesis, as it became known, held that the United States must deal with externally
supported insurgencies through bombing their source7. Regarding the conflict in Vietnam, the
ide fixe of the application of this hawkish worldview, in Milnes words, was bombing the
north, the alleged source of the insurgency in South Vietnam8.
As early as 1961, when Rostow was serving as National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundys
deputy and later as head of the State Department Policy Planning Commission during President
1

Nelson, The Policy Makers, Introduction, pg 2

Gardner, The Policy Makers, Walt Whitman Rostow: Hawkeyed Optimist, pg 62
3
Nelson, pg 2
4
Milne, Americas Rasputin, pg 11
5
Purdum, 2003
6
Westad, The Global Cold War, pg 332
7
Milne, pg 134
8
Milne, pg 98
2

John F. Kennedys administration, he found allies in the military who similarly supported
increasing American intervention in Vietnam to stem what was seen as the growing threat of
communist insurgencies backed by China and the Soviet Union in a key geostrategic region. In
October 1961, Rostow and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor, reported
to the White House following their trip to Vietnam that the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, the weak
and unpopular American-backed leader of South Vietnam, was threatening to collapse under
pressure from one such insurgency9.
Rostows own views on the necessity of increased American military intervention in Vietnam in
order to save Diem had been informed by a report from earlier that year authored by Gen.
Edward Lansdale, a Defense Department counterinsurgency expert who had extensive field
experience in Southeast Asia. Rostow described Lansdales assessment as an extremely vivid
and well-written account of a place that was going to hell in a hack and he came in to see the
president with this [report] in [his] hand10. Once Rostow got Kennedy to read it, the report
seemed to make an impression on the president, who asked Rostow to go deeply into the
problem of Vietnam11. Rostow would go on to advocate greatly expanding the U.S. military
role in Vietnam and Southeast Asia more generally, but such hawkish recommendations were not
pursued by the Kennedy administration12.
This may have been due, at least in part, to the influence of dissenting voices within President
Kennedys trusted inner circle. As David Halberstam writes in his chronicle of the Vietnam War,
The Best and the Brightest, an alternative appraisal of the situation provided by Kennedys
ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, concluded almost the opposite of Taylor and
RostowAbove all, [Galbraith] pushed for political, rather than military solutions to the
problem13. Rostow worked to counter Galbraiths advice, submitting various memos to
Kennedy attempting to rebut his analysis14. However, others in the administration had their
doubts about the efficacy of a potential military escalation and bombing campaign, including
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy15. Rather than
following the advice of Rostow and other hawks, Kennedy opted for something of a muddled
compromise in his response to the deterioration of Diems authority and by extension the
American position in Vietnam. He increased the U.S. troop presence in the south to 16,000 in
1963, but according to diplomatic historian Walter LaFeber, Kennedy also continued to pressure
Diem to hurry reforms and listen to U.S. advice16.
Halberstam may have put it best when he wrote ironically that Rostow was the wrong man at
the wrong place with the wrong idea as the situation in Vietnam continued to worsen from the
point of view of American policymakers17. After the fall of Diem and the assassination of
Kennedy in November 1963, President Lyndon Johnson inherited what Rostow later described as
9

LaFeber, The American Age, pg 592

Rostow, 1964; cited in Milne, pg 85
11
Rostow, 1972; quoted in Milne, pg 86
12
Milne, pg 91
13
Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, pg 152
14
Rostow, 1961(a) and 1961(b)
15
Bundy, 1961
16
Lafeber, pg 594
17
Halberstam, pg 513
10

the great crisis of 1964-1965not narrowly in Vietnam, but a crisis in Asia18. At a time when
more moderate courses of action seemed to have failed to halt the spread of Soviet and Chinesebacked communist influence in this important region, Milne argues, the Rostow Thesis
which claimed certainty that the United States could defeat the southern insurgency by bombing
North Vietnam brought Rostow to Johnsons attention as someone with original ideas and
absolute commitment to the cause of defeating Southeast Asian communism19.
In other words, Rostow said what the President wanted to hear20. Following the August 1964
confrontation between American and North Vietnamese naval vessels, known as the Tonkin Gulf
incident, and the November 1964 attack at the Bien Hoa air base, which killed four U.S. soldiers
and injured several others, Johnson ordered a national security working group, headed by
William Bundy (brother of national security adviser McGeorge), to examine alternatives for
bombing on the Rostow criteria21. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the group recommended a
Rostovian model of graduated military pressures directed systematically against the DRV
[North Vietnamese Government], consisting principally of progressively more serious
airstrikes, of a weight and tempo adjusted to the situation as it developsThis could and, this
author thinks it is important to note, did eventually lead to such measures as air strikes on all
major military-related targets, aerial mining of DRV ports, and a US naval blockade of the
DRV22.
Many other important figures in the Johnson administration continued to recommend various
forms of escalation, including bombing, against Vietnam throughout 196523. Both State and
Defense referred to the option of bombing Vietnam as the Rostow Thesis, writes Milne. The
usage of such terminology suggests that Rostows influence even from the distant remove of
the [State Departments] Policy Planning Council was profound24. But as he also notes,
Johnsons coterie of foreign policy advisors opted for the Rostow Thesis not with enthusiasm,
but resignation25 it seemed there were no other viable options on the table26. This provides
evidence that Rostow served more as an ideas man27 than a decision-maker in the Kennedy
and Johnson administrations.
For example, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, while likely influenced by the Thesis long
advocated by Rostow and his allies in the military, appeared to come to the conclusion that
American escalation was necessary on his own accord. As Milne writes, McNamara had taken a
trip to Vietnam in July 1965 and had become convinced that the United States could defeat the
South Vietnamese insurgency through the application of its superior military force. The national
security adviser [McGeorge Bundy] was equally convinced that America could not duck this
battle. But the foundations on which these men made their recommendations were not formed in
18

Rostow, 1993
Milne, pg 11
20
Ibid
21
Ibid, 147
22
Document 6, Chapter 13; in Merrill and Patterson, pg 422
23
Bundy, 1965.
24
Ibid
25
Ibid, pg 147
26
Halberstam, Chapter 23
27
Milne, pg 154
19

a vacuum; they were shaped by many influences, one of which was the man who fashioned a
Vietnam bombing strategy before anyone else, namely, Walt Rostow28.
Rostows contribution to the making and prolonging of the Vietnam War was as important as
any one of that more visible foreign policy trio consisting of national security adviser
McGeorge Bundy, defense secretary Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, writes
Milne29. But as he astutely points out; It should be made clear that while Rostows ideas were
present at the crucial escalatory meetings of the Vietnam War, his person was not. His impact on
the decisionmaking process prior to the launch of [the graduated bombing campaign against
North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, known as Operation] Rolling Thunder was significant,
although he should not be placed alongside Bundy and McNamara as a direct participatory force
for escalation in Vietnam more broadly30. In point of fact, McNamara later admitted his
culpability in the horror that continued to unfold in Vietnam over the next decade. Looking
back, McNamara wrote in his 1995 memoir In Retrospect, I clearly erred by not forcing then
or later, in either Saigon or Washington a knock-down, drag-out debate over the loose
assumptions, unasked questions, and thin analyses underlying our military strategy in
Vietnam31.
All the while, official Washington continued to view its deteriorating position in Southeast Asia
with chagrin. A temporary pause in bombing in late 1965 advocated by McNamara had proved
unsuccessful and by 1966 President Johnson increasingly saw links between winning the only
woman I really loved (the Great Society programs at home) and the bitch of a war in Asia, as
Lafeber put it32. The mounting financial and human costs of the war appeared to threaten the
presidents ability to deliver on promises made to domestic constituencies. Historian Fredrik
Logevall writes that for Johnson, who had promised he would not be the president who lost
Vietnamit was not merely his countrys and his partys reputation that [he] took to be on the
line, but also his own33.
Rostow shared with Johnson a personal investment in the outcome of the war, though for
different reasons. As Milne put it, the mere existence of communist nation-states became an
affront to [Rostows] academic vision as laid out in his 1960 opus The Stages of Economic
Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto34. For Rostow, Vietnam was a test case for his thesis
that U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia including counter-insurgency operations, ground
warfare and escalatory airstrikes targeting the alleged sources of the insurgency was
necessary to save the region from communist influence and, most crucially, to create the
conditions that would eventually allow Western political and economic structures to take root
and flourish there. In Milnes words, economic determinismis the sine qua non of Rostows
conclusions in Stages35.
28

Milne, pg 148
Ibid, pg 13
30
Ibid, pg 148
31
Document 9, Chapter 13; in Merrill and Patterson, pg 426
32
Lafeber, pg 611
33
Logevall, Lyndon Johnson and His Advisers Pursue Personal Credibility and War; in Merrill and Patterson, pg
443
34
Milne, pg 43
35
Ibid, pg 64
29

By the time of Rostows appointment as national security adviser in April 1966, Johnsons
national security team had committed to a bombing campaign in Vietnam but had split on the
issue of targeting petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) facilities, with McNamara, Bundy and Rusk
all opposed to the measure as immoral, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Earle
Wheeler, Gen. Maxwell Taylor and Rostow argued it was a necessary part of the escalation
strategy. Bundy had left the administration, in part because of this issue, clearing the way for
Rostow to replace him. McNamara and Rusk somewhat reluctantly went along with Johnson as
he sided with now-national security adviser Rostow and his allies. As Milne writes, Over the
course of 1966, as Rostow gained closer proximity to the president, Johnson escalated the war to
include targets opposed by both his secretary of state and his secretary of defense36.
Rostows reputation as a respected academic and expert on world affairs, combined with his
earlier service during World War II as an analyst tasked with identifying bombing targets in
Germany, gave him credibility with presidents Kennedy and Johnson, both of whom were
veterans of the same war. However, even Johnson had to overcome some doubts about Rostows
suitability as a replacement for McGeorge Bundy once the latter tendered his resignation in
December 1965. I like Rostow, Johnson remarked to Robert McNamara in late February 1966,
but I dont want to get started off here and get everybody thinking that were going back to war
and hardliner [sic]37.
Rostow thoroughly believed in the validity of his thesis, but he also maintained that Johnson
made decisions regarding U.S. policy independently38. Quoting President Johnsons own words
as evidence, Rostow pointed out decades later that his boss shared his belief that the real crisis in
Asia during the mid-1960s was not the momentary threat of communism itself. Rather that
danger stems from hunger, ignorance, poverty, and disease. We must whatever strategy involved
keep these enemies at the point of our attack39. That is to say, Johnson (along with many other
members of his administration) generally agreed with the logic underlying the Rostow Thesis:
that the perversion of communism had to be eliminated with military force so the natural
development of the region along democratic capitalist lines could unfold.
Rostow certainly fed the presidents need for new ideas to protect South Vietnam and constant
reassurance that the war was winnable, writes Milne, and Walt Rostow provided both with a
smile. But, in contrast, President Kennedy once knocked Rostow with the backhanded
compliment that Walt can write faster than I can read and at another time said of his thenadvisor Walt is a fountain of ideas; perhaps one in ten of them is absolutely brilliant.
Unfortunately, six or seven are not merely unsound, but dangerously so40. Kennedy, unnerved
by Rostows extreme hawkishness on Southeast Asia policy, but still fundamentally in
agreement with Rostows liberal, Cold War ideology, had moved him out of the White House
and over to the State Department where, as chairman of the Policy Planning Council, he tasked
Rostow with developing broader guidance for U.S. foreign policy.
36

Milne, pg 157
Johnson, as quoted in Milne, pg 163
38
Rostow, 1993
39
Johnson, as quoted by Rostow, 1993
40
Kennedy, as quoted in Milne, pg 99
37

On the other hand, as Gardner acknowledges, Johnson brought Rostow closer to the White
House as the president became more convinced of the need for continued escalation in Vietnam.
Gardner writes that Rostow continued spooning out megadoses of an elixir of optimism even as
the situation grew worse and the nations patience grew thin, but at the same time he admits that
it was President Johnson who dared congress to rescind the so-called Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution, under whose authority American military involvement in Vietnam was
sanctioned41. Similarly, Milne describes Rostow as the prophet of American victory in
Vietnam42 but unlike Gardner, he acknowledges more fully the role played by President
Johnson, who continued to bring Rostow closer as the President came to view a military victory
in Vietnam as indispensible to achieving his domestic policy goals.
As Rostow established this bond of trust and familial intimacy with the president, Milne
writes, his views came to guide U.S. policy toward the Vietnam War. The graduated bombing
of North Vietnamheightened sharply in intensity following his promotion to national security
adviser in April 1966. The amount of U.S. ordnance dropped on North Vietnam increased from
33,000 tons in 1965 to 128,000 tons in 196643. However, Milne correctly adds that [t]his sharp
increase in bombing is not solely attributable to Rostows ascension in influence vis--vis
Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, but his contribution helped allay doubts
and gave a critical boost to the Joint Chiefs of Staffs case for escalation44.
The periods during which Rostow had the closest personal and professional relationships with
presidents Kennedy and Johnson were when he was telling those presidents what they wanted to
hear. This often coincided with broader support reluctant, tacit or otherwise for Rostovian
policies among other influential members of the policymaking establishment. When Rostows
hardline approach to Vietnam fell out of favor with the White House, so did his influence on
U.S. policymaking in Southeast Asia (and vice versa). This is not to say that individuals like
Rostow cannot or do not have a substantial influence on the policymaking process, only that their
impact is constrained by various factors that are often outside their immediate control, including
other individuals in positions of power within the network of government bureaucracies.
None of this necessarily discounts Gardners essential thesis that Rostows unwavering
optimism, his nimble and productive mind, and his (misguided) confidence in the correctness of
his basic strategy toward Vietnam, combined with his close relationship (at times) with two
presidents, all played influential roles in U.S. policy in Vietnam during the 1960s. However, a
narrow focus on Rostows role runs the risk of attributing to him too much influence relative to
other high-level policymakers, including Johnson, McNamara, Bundy and Rusk, as well as the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, many of whom advocated or acquiesced to policies along the lines of those
advocated by Rostow. Additionally, while they can be highly insightful in certain respects, such
tightly-focused analyses as Gardners can underemphasize important explanatory factors that
existed in the contemporary bureaucratic, domestic and international contexts during which key
decisions were made.
41

Gardner, pg 71-73
Milne, pg 148
43
Milne, pg 11
44
Ibid, pg. 11
42

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