Blowtorch: Robert Komer and the making of Vietnam pacification policy

Parameters, Autumn, 2005 by Frank L. Jones

Concluding Thoughts

Komer held the view until his death in 2000 that the pacification program he had created with Westmoreland's and Bunker's support, and which the South Vietnamese had executed with the help of up to 16,000 US advisers (civilian and military) and resources, was "the best program the US ever devised to meet rural insurgency." (57) Such a broad and arguably self-serving statement demands scrutiny. Therefore, it is useful to dissect Komer's influence on the pacification program in two respects. First, why was Komer's policy vision of how to enhance cooperation and unity of command of the pacification program the one President Johnson ultimately accepted? Second, after the President approved Komer's policy prescription, was it operationally successful?

Policymaking Success

A number of scholars and officials of the era have judged Robert Komer as an important and successful strategic architect of Johnson's Vietnam pacification policy. (58) As central as these views and achievements are, the most critical arbiter of Komer's success was Johnson himself. Johnson chose Komer as his special assistant to implement the President's vision of the "other war." Johnson ultimately decided that Komer would go to Vietnam and serve as Westmoreland's civilian deputy to implement pacification policy on the ground. Why was Komer successful in this role as a policy formulator?

"You can't beat brains," President John Kennedy once said. Kennedy built his national security team around that dictum, and Komer, who joined the Kennedy NSC staff in 1961, had the right intellectual pedigrees: a sterling academic record as an undergraduate at Harvard College (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) followed by graduation from Harvard Business School. As many of Komer's contemporaries have remarked, Komer had a powerful, incandescent intellect which was melded to his forceful personality, attributes which are sometimes more important than institutional links. The highest compliment Komer could ever pay a subordinate was to call him an "expediter." It is how he thought of himself. He was not a coordinator, a facilitator, or a consensus-builder. He was a man of action who carried out his duties with speed and efficiency. He knew how to charm and manipulate in order to achieve his ends. Yet intellectual capacity and sheer force of personality alone will not bring success in the formulation and implementation of policy. Five other factors pertain to his success.

The first is his loyalty to Johnson, and out of this loyalty grew Johnson's confidence and trust in Komer. As Neil Sheehan noted, Komer was one of the few Kennedy men that Johnson trusted. (59) They had developed a congenial relationship when Komer accompanied then-Vice President Johnson on a goodwill trip to the Middle East in 1962. Further, Komer was a career professional, dedicated to serving Johnson. His personality was also similar to Johnson's in that he was determined to achieve objectives and did not refrain from browbeating someone if it were necessary to bend their will to his own to achieve success. So there was a personal affinity.