Inventing Vietnam: The United States and State Building, 1954-1968 Book

This book will appeal to those readers who have an interest in recent American politics and international affairs. There is little new here that will be unfamiliar to area specialists, which is not to say that the book is without merit. Wills provides a comprehensive review of the origins and birth of the "national security state," and I agree with his criticisms of it. His arguments are persuasive and his evidence is compelling.

The title refers to the growth of presidential power due to the existence of nuclear weapons. He argues that the Manhattan Project was not just the rationale for growing presidential power but also a model for it. The Manhattan Project was arguably unconstitutional yet forgivable in wartime. The manner in which it was conducted--extreme secrecy, concentration of power in the hands of a single person, confiscation of private property, suppressing the Constitutional rights of American citizens, even contemplated assassinations--was less forgivingly applied to other areas of policy and resulted in contemporary arguments for a "unitary" executive. "Wartime" became a permanent feature of American life after World War II and the shift of power from the Congress to the president has become virtually irreversible. Wills' argument may be simplistic but it is nevertheless persuasive.

The abuses of power and outright criminality of U.S. officials in the pursuit of "national security" are well-documented both here and in innumerable public documents and scholarly works. Wills notes that in virtually all of these cases, American adversaries knew precisely what the United States was up to. Only Congress and the American public were deceived.

On one point I quibble with Wills' account. Congress, and in turn American voters, was often complicit in the growth of secret, presidential power. Congress willingly delegated powers to the president since World War II, at least in part because Members wished to avoid responsibility for the illegal and brutal actions undertaken by our government. Voters, too, closed their eyes, shut their mouths, and covered their ears when people like Seymour Hirsch warned them of crimes committed in their name. When Congress stood up to presidential abuses, as with the War Powers Resolution, its efforts were half-baked and timid in the extreme, creating loopholes for the national security state and that were willfully ignored by one administration after another in any case.

Wills wonders if the country can ever return to the days when the Constitution ruled and Congress took responsibility for the conduct of government. Many of us ask the same question and wind up with the same conclusion as Wills: Probably not.