University of Virginia Library

Norman Graebner Discusses

The following is an edited transcript of an
interview with Professor Norman A. Graebner
conducted by Cavalier Daily reporter Mike
Gartlan just prior to the allied withdrawal from
Laos.

Since September, 1967, Mr. Graebner has
held the Edward R. Stettinius Professorship in
Modern American History at the University.
For the two years, 1967-69, he also held an
appointment to the University of Virginia's
Center for Advanced Study.

His education includes a B.S. degree from
Milwaukee State Teachers College (now the
University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee), an M.A.
in history from the University of Oklahoma,
and a Ph.D. degree in history from the University
of Chicago.

During the past 22 years he has taught at
Iowa State University, Stanford University
(Visiting Associate Professor, 1952-53, and
Visiting Professor, 1959), and at the University
of Illinois, 1956-67. From 1961 until 1963 he
served as chairman of the history department at
the University of Illinois, and in 1960 and 1961
was an associate member of the Center for
Advanced Studies. University of Illinois During
1963 he served as Fulbright Lecturer at the
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
He delivered the Commonwealth Fund Lectures
at the University of London in January and
February, 1958. In April, 1962, he delivered
the Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures at
Louisiana' State University on the theme of
"The Divided South, 1848."

Mr. Graebner has written five books, the
most recent of these being Ideas and Diplomacy
and a two-volumed History of the United States
which he co-authored with Gilbert C. Fite and
Phillip L. White. He has also edited six other
volumes including Manifest Destiny published
in 1968. His other writings on American
Politics include about sixty articles and portions
of books. At present he is a Contributing
Editor of Current History.

—Ed.

Q: Now that you have had time to step back
and look at what's happened in Southeast Asia
do you feel that our initial goals in that region
and the means proposed at that time for
attaining those goals were sound?

A: If the goals and the means of that policy had
been sound, there would have been no difficulty.
We can look back for a moment. During
World War II the government faced no special
problem in maintaining a wartime policy. Once
it established the goal that Germany should be
defeated, the American people were perfectly
willing to underwrite that goal at any cost. The
war was not divisive; few Americans ever
questioned the objectives of the war or the
methods which the government employed to
win it. Somehow none of these basic ingredients
of policy seem to be present in the
Vietnam War. Who is the enemy? This has never

been defined except in the most general term.
There is no Hitler. There is not even a Germany.
Certainly North Vietnam, a jungle
country, cannot generate enough power to
threaten Asia, much less the United States.
Therefore the danger must lie elsewhere. But
where? China? Russia? Or the more general
international communism? No two Americans
out of ten would agree on any definition of the
enemy. Originally the United States established
its containment policy in Asia to stop the
Russians. Later the enemy shifted to China. But
we fight the war and pursue the peace as if the
enemy is Hanoi and Hanoi alone. If the enemy
is Russia or China, how does the United States
resolve the problem by fighting the Vietnamese?
If the enemy is really North Vietnam,
then what is the danger that requires the
expenditure of some $200 billion and a badly
divided country?

This inability to define the enemy leads to
the problem of strategy. How and where does
one fight the war? How much should the
United States exert its power? We fight to save
all Asia and much more from Communist
control. That suggests a challenge of global
proportions, and he various rationales of the
war reflect the notion of a global danger. But
we have always fought the war as if the danger
lay solely in Vietnam and that the whole global
danger could somehow be eliminated by fighting
successfully in the jungles of South Vietnam.
Where is the monster that, by taking
control of Saigon, will then conquer the rest of
South and Southeast Asia? In the jungles of
Vietnam? In practice the concept of a global
danger motivated the escalation of the
American involvement in the sixties. Yet the
level of the involvement never reflected a global
danger at all. Until 1962 the United States
government insisted that the Asian allies were
capable of handling any challenge in southeast
Asia. Two years later it became clear that only
the United States could keep Saigon out of the
hands of North Vietnam. Even then the United
States attempted to fight the war as a limited
encounter. But as a limited encounter the price
of victory began to mount until it began to
divide the American people. After an investment
of 500,000 men and $20 billion a year
the victory remained elusive. Why this was true
is clear enough. If th government could never
define the enemy in understandable terms, it
could never obtain any consensus on the need
of victory or the proper strategy to be pursued.

Q: Do you think President Nixon is sincere in
his efforts to withdraw all United States troops
from South Vietnam, particularly in light of the
Laotian invasion?

A: I believe the President is sincere in wanting
the troops out. Any American would favor
that. But this does not answer the basic
question. For both President Johnson and
President Nixon the changes in Vietnam policy
have comprised only changes in the means and
not in the ends of policy. The me the key
problem in Vietnam is the definition of the
ends, not the means. What disturbs me about
the efforts to wind down the war is that the
government is trying to resolve the difficulty by
adjusting the means without adjusting the ends
of policy. The President wants the troops out
of Vietnam, but he also wants a victory. This
dichotomy accounts for the Cambodian invasion
in 1970 and the recent move into Laos.
These efforts are designed to weaken the enemy
so that the process of Vietnamization will

Photo By Mike Gartian

University Professor Norman A. Graebner

Former Illinois Professor Had Lectures Broadcast Over Campus Radio Station