1 Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 620–621Google Scholar .

2 Aron, Raymond, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), p. 599Google Scholar .

3 Lebow, Richard N., The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

4 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Truth and Power: The Intellectuals and the Johnson Administration’, New Republic (26 November 1966), p. 14Google Scholar .

5 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Preface’, in Morgenthau, Hans, Vietnam and the US (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1965), p. 5Google Scholar .

6 Tomes, Robert R., Apocalypse Then: American Intellectuals and the Vietnam War, 1954–1975 (New York: New York University Press, 1998), pp. 145–147Google Scholar .

7 For essays which study aspects of Morgenthau's critique of American involvement in Vietnam, see Mearsheimer, John, ‘A Case Study of Iraq – Analogies to Vietnam?’, in Hacke, Christian, Kindermann, Gottfried-Karl, and Schellhorn, Kai M. (eds), The Heritage, Challenge, and Future of Realism: In Memoriam Hans J. Morgenthau (Gottingen: V&R Unipress, 2005), pp. 139–148Google Scholar ; Cox, Michael, ‘Hans J Morgenthau, Realism, and the Rise and Fall of the Cold War’, in Williams, Michael C. (ed.), Realism Reconsidered (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 181–185Google Scholar ; Falk, Richard, ‘Hans Morgenthau on Two Wars of America in Vietnam and Iraq’, in Mazur, G. O. (ed.), One Hundred Year Commemoration to the Life of Hans Morgenthau (1904–2004) (New York: Semeneko Foundation, 2004)Google Scholar ; Cozette, M., ‘Reclaiming the Critical Dimension of Realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the Ethics of Scholarship’, Review of International Studies, 34 (2008), pp. 16–18Google Scholar .

8 The only two notable exceptions are See, J. W., ‘A Prophet without Honor: Hans Morgenthau and the War in Vietnam, 1955–1965’, Pacific Historic Review, 70:3 (2001), pp. 419–447Google Scholar and Rafshoon, E. Glaser, ‘A Realist's Moral Opposition to War: Hans J. Morgenthau and Vietnam’, Peace & Change, 26:1 (2001), pp. 55–77Google Scholar . These articles have the unquestionable merit of providing a detailed historical analysis of the role played by Morgenthau in the debate over Vietnam. See's chronological narrative, however, does not fully highlight the relationship between Morgenthau's philosophy of politics and his analysis of American foreign policy. In contrast, Rafshoon's argument mistakenly traces a dramatic change in Morgenthau's theory of international politics. Indeed, the fact that Morgenthau judged the Vietnam War immoral and unjust, as Rafshoon correctly notes, did not equate to a grand departure from his advocacy of a realist foreign policy. During the Vietnam debate, Morgenthau consistently and continuously argued that the standard by which a sound foreign policy must be judged is the national interest of the US, see, for example, Morgenthau, , Vietnam and the US, pp. 13, 14, 34, 47, 55, 60, 65, 67, 68, 81, 85, 87, 88Google Scholar .

9 Bain, William, ‘Deconfusing Morgenthau: Moral Inquiry and Classical Realism Reconsidered, Review of International Studies, 26:3 (2000), pp. 445–464Google Scholar ; Mollow, Benjamin, Power and Transcendence (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2002)Google Scholar ; Molloy, Sean, ‘Truth, Power, Theory: Hans Morgenthau's Foundation of Realism’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 15:1 (2004), pp. 1–34Google Scholar ; Williams, Michael C., ‘Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Collective Identity, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, 58:4 (2006), pp. 633–665Google Scholar ; Ibid., The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Lang, Anthony F., ‘Morgenthau, Agency, and Aristotle’, in Williams, (ed.), Realism Reconsidered, pp. 18–41Google Scholar ; Rengger, Nicholas, ‘Realism, Tragedy and the Anti-Pelagian Imagination in International Political Thought’, in Williams, (ed.), Realism Reconsidered, pp. 118–136Google Scholar ; Scheuerman, William E., ‘Was Morgenthau a Realist? Revisiting Scientific Man Vs. Power Politics’, Constellations, 14:4, 2007, pp. 506–530Google Scholar ; Ibid., ‘Realism and the Left: the case of Hans J. Morgenthau’, Review of International Studies, 34 (2008), pp. 29–51Google Scholar .

10 It should not be forgotten that Morgenthau published two monographs and well over two hundred articles on American foreign policy, see Frei, Christoph, Hans J. Morgenthau – An Intellectual Biography (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana University Press, 2001), p. 217Google Scholar .

11 Hammer, Ellen J., The Struggle for Indochina 1940–1955 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 148–198Google Scholar .

12 MacMahon, Robert J., ‘Harry S. Truman and the Roots of US Involvement in Indochina, 1945–1953’, in Anderson, D. L. (ed.), Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993), pp. 21–38Google Scholar .

13 Herring, George, America's Longest War: The US and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 2002), p. 29Google Scholar .

14 The agreement came after a number of hypotheses, discarded one after another, including the nuclear bombing of Vietnamese communist forces and a conventional war through the creation of a military coalition (United Action). On these events see Western, Jon, Selling Intervention and War: the Presidency, the Media, and the American Public (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 26–61Google Scholar .

15 Hereinafter Diem.

16 Anderson, David L., Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–1961 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 123–127Google Scholar .

17 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Background to Civil War’, in Vietnam and the US, pp. 21–24Google Scholar ; originally published in the Washington Post (26 February 1956).

18 Ibid., pp. 21, 24.

19 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Another Korea?’, in Vietnam and the US, pp. 29–30Google Scholar ; originally published in Commentary, 33:5 (May 1962), pp. 369–74.

20 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Can Total Diplomacy Avert Total War?’, The Nation, 170 (20 May 1950)Google Scholar ; Ibid., ‘History's Lesson’, The Nation, 171 (16 December 1950)Google Scholar .

21 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Soviet Policy and World Conquest’, Current History, 37:219 (1959), p. 290Google Scholar .

22 Mollow, , Power and Transcendence, pp. 174–175Google Scholar .

23 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Postscript to the Transaction Edition: Bernard Johnson's Interview with Hans J. Morgenthau’, in Thompson, Kenneth W. and Myers, Richard J. (eds), Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau (London: Transaction Brooks, 1984), p. 374Google Scholar .

24 For a similar interpretation on the indigenous nature of the South Vietnamese insurgency see Bringham, Robert K., ‘Three Alternative US Strategies in Vietnam: A Reexamination Based on New Chinese and Vietnamese Sources’, in McNamara, Robert S. (ed.), Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), pp. 409–419Google Scholar .

25 Morgenthau, Hans, A New Foreign Policy for the US (London: Pall Mall Press, 1969), pp. 129–139Google Scholar .

26 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Realities of Containment’, Vietnam and the US, p. 47Google Scholar ; originally published in the New Leader (8 June 1964).

27 Morgenthau, Hans, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 20Google Scholar . See also Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Surrender to the Immanence of Power: E. H. Carr’, in Morgenthau, Hans, The Restoration of American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 36Google Scholar .

28 Morgenthau, Hans, Politics among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), pp. 584–586Google Scholar .

29 Morgenthau, , Politics among Nations, pp. 5–12Google Scholar ; Ibid., American Foreign Policy (London: Methuen & Co., 1952), pp. 33–39Google Scholar ; originally published as In Defense of the National Interest (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951)Google Scholar .

30 Morgenthau, ‘Another Korea?’, p. 34.

31 Morgenthau, ‘The Realities of Containment’, p. 48.

32 Ibid., p. 48; Morgenthau, Hans, ‘We Are Deluding Ourselves’, in Vietnam and the US, p. 45Google Scholar ; originally published in the New York Times Magazine (18 April 1965)Google Scholar .

33 Morgenthau, ‘The Realities of Containment’, p. 43.

34 ChenGuan, Ang, ‘The Vietnam War, 1962–1964: The Vietnamese Communist Perspective’, Journal of Contemporary History, 35:4 (October 2000), pp. 601–618Google Scholar .

35 Quoted in Crockatt, Richard, The Fifty Years War: The US and the Soviet Union in World Politics, 1941–1991 (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 245Google Scholar .

36 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Globalism: The Moral Crusade’, in Vietnam and the US, p. 81Google Scholar , originally published in the New Republic (3 July 1965).

37 Quoted in Lebow, , The Tragic Vision of Politics, p. 241Google Scholar .

38 The sects were politico-religious organisations that controlled, through their armies, vast and important areas around the Mekong Delta and parts of Saigon.

39 Morgenthau, ‘The Realities of Containment’, p. 43.

40 Morgenthau, ‘Background to Civil War’, p. 21.

41 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Immaturity of our Asian Policy IV: The Danger of Doing Too Much’, New Republic, (April 1956), pp. 14–16Google Scholar .

42 Morgenthau, , Another Korea?, p. 32Google Scholar .

43 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘America and the World Revolution’, Commentary, 36:4 (1963), pp. 283Google Scholar .

44 Ibid., p. 286.

45 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘To Intervene or Not to Intervene’, Foreign Affairs, 45:3 (1967), p. 425CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

46 Morgenthau, , Politics among Nations, p. 532Google Scholar . For a different interpretation of Hobbes’ theory of political order see Williams, Michael C., ‘Hobbes and International Relations: A Reconsideration’, International Organization, 50:2 (1996), pp. 213–236Google Scholar .

47 Morgenthau, , A New Foreign Policy for the US, p. 138Google Scholar .

48 Morgenthau, , Politics among Nations, p. 183Google Scholar .

49 Ibid., pp. 154–64.

50 Herring, , America's Longest War, p. 267Google Scholar .

51 See Kennedy's political statements in Sorensen, T.C. (ed.), ‘Let the World Go Forth’: The Speeches, Statements and Writings of John F. Kennedy, 1947–1963 (New York: Dell Publishing, 1988)Google Scholar .

52 Kissinger, , Diplomacy, p. 650Google Scholar .

53 Morgenthau, ‘The Realities of Containment’, p. 44.

54 Kissinger, , Diplomacy, pp. 656–657Google Scholar .

55 Herring, , America's Longest War, p. 91Google Scholar .

56 On this point see Kaiser, D., American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000)Google Scholar .

57 Kissinger, , Diplomacy, p. 507Google Scholar .

58 The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (the vote in the Senate was an unequivocal 88 to 2) was taken after an alleged North Vietnamese attack on the American destroyers USS Maddox and Turner Joy on August 1964. According to historian George Herring ‘no evidence has ever been produced to demonstrate that they [the North Vietnamese] committed hostile acts and it now seems certain that no second attack took place’. Herring, America's Longest War, p. 142.

59 The principal supporter of this strategy was Walt Rostow, Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, who thought that Hanoi would surrender in order to protect the industrial and transport systems it had heavily invested in, see Schultz, Richard, ‘Breaking the Will of the Enemy during the Vietnam War: The Operationalization of the Cost-Benefit Model of Counterinsurgency Warfare’, Journal of Peace Research, 15:2 (1978), p. 116Google Scholar . For a study of the effects of the air warfare see Clodfelter, Mark, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989)Google Scholar .

60 Schultz, ‘Breaking the Will of the Enemy during the Vietnam War’, p. 117.

61 Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar . However, from the Pentagon Papers we now know that Schelling told John McNaughton (Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs) that coercive bombings should last for three weeks maximum. As for the decision-making process that led to the military escalation, see Herring, George (ed.), The Pentagon Papers: Abridged Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), pp. 100–117Google Scholar .

62 Leites, Nathan C. and Wolf, Charles, Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic Essay on Insurgent Conflicts (Chicago: Markham, 1970), pp. 11–13Google Scholar .

63 Ibid., p. 45.

64 Morgenthau, ‘America and the World Revolution’, p. 278.

65 Morgenthau, , A New Foreign Policy for the US, p. 140Google Scholar

66 The fallacy of the body count was also due to the fact that any Vietnamese body found was computed as a killed enemy, while there were often non-combatant victims. The short-sighted and brutal unwritten rule that had guided some military operations in Indochina can be summed up as ‘if it's dead, it's a Viet Cong’.

67 Leites, and Wolf, , Rebellion and Authority, p. 155Google Scholar .

68 Morgenthau, , A New Foreign Policy for the US, pp. 140–141Google Scholar

69 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘US Misadventure in Vietnam’, Current History, 54 (January 1968), p. 31Google Scholar .

70 Morgenthau, , A New Foreign Policy for the US, pp. 142–144Google Scholar .

71 Murray, William A. and Parker, Geoffrey, ‘The Post-War World’, in Parker, Geoffrey (ed.), The Cambridge History of Warfare (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 380Google Scholar .

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73 Quoted, in Kissinger, , Diplomacy, p. 660Google Scholar .

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75 Morgenthau, , A New Foreign Policy for the US, p. 137Google Scholar .

76 The title of the heading is adapted from Buzan, Barry, ‘The timeless wisdom of realism’, in Smith, Steve, Booth, Ken and Zalewski, Marysia (eds), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 47–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

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78 Quoted, in Crockatt, , The Fifty Years War, p. 241Google Scholar .

79 Ibid., p. 251. On the relationship between Vietnam and China see Zhai, Qiang, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)Google Scholar .

80 Schultz, Richard, ‘The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare: The Case of the Viet Cong’, in Polity (Fall 1978), pp. 67–91Google Scholar . However, Northern Vietnam showed no mercy in repressing rebellions among the peasants in their territory such as the ones occurred in the Nghe An province and in the Red River Valley. On these events see Moise, Edwin E., Land Reform in China and North Vietnam: Consolidating the Revolution at the Village Level (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983)Google Scholar .

81 Murray and Parker, ‘The Post-War World’, pp. 376–7.

82 For example see Morgenthau's intransigent stance on the Soviet challenge during the second Cuban crisis, see Morgenthau, Hans J., ‘Cuba – The Wake of Isolation’, Commentary, 34:5 (November 1962), pp. 427–430Google Scholar .

83 Hoffman, Stanley, ‘An American Social Science: International Relations’, in Hoffmann, Stanley, Janus and Minerva: Essays in the Theory and Practice of International Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), p. 6Google Scholar .

84 Quoted, in Myers, Richard, ‘An Approximation of Justice’, in Thompson, and Myers, (eds), Truth and Tragedy, p. 127Google Scholar .

85 Morgenthau, ‘Bernard Johnson's interview with Hans J. Morgenthau’, p. 382.

86 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The National Interest and the Pentagon Papers’, Partisan Review, 3 (1972), p. 369Google Scholar .

87 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Truth and Power’, in Morgenthau, Hans, Truth and Power (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), p. 22Google Scholar . It is difficult to say if the so-called ‘Project Morgenthau’ actually existed. Interviewed on this issue, Dr. Brzezinski has recently said that he has no knowledge of any such project and doubts that it was undertaken. He also indicated that there were probably efforts to undermine Morgenthau's argumentation within the Administration, but he doubts that it was anything more than that. Personal communication, 17 March 2009.

88 Morgenthau, ‘Bernard Johnson's interview with Hans J. Morgenthau’, p. 383. A detailed examination of Morgenthau's CBS debate with McGeorge Bundy can be found in Rafshoon, ‘A Realist's Moral Opposition to War’, pp. 65–7.

89 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Case Against Further Involvement’, in Vietnam and the US, pp. 38–42Google Scholar ; originally published in the Washington Post (15 March 1964).

90 Morgenthau, ‘Bernard Johnson's interview with Hans J. Morgenthau’, pp. 375–6. In 1966, Walt Rostow replaced Bundy as National Security Advisor. In 1968, as president of the Ford Foundation, Bundy began to call for a gradual de-escalation of the Vietnam War. Morgenthau described Bundy's departure from his previous position with the following sarcastic metaphor: ‘the Vietnam ship is obviously sinking, and in consequence many members of the crew jump overboard and frantically swim to shore, making it appear that either they were never aboard or were only doubting and unwilling mates’, Morgenthau, , ‘The Doctrine of War Without End’, Truth and Power, p. 416Google Scholar .

91 Quoted, in Mollow, , Power and Transcendence, p. 81Google Scholar .

92 Quoted, in Nicholson, Michael, ‘What's the use of International Relations?’, Review of International Studies, 26 (2000), p. 189Google Scholar .

93 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Web of Falsehood’, in New Leader (11 December 1972), p. 15Google Scholar .

94 Benda, J., The Treason of the Intellectuals (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2006)Google Scholar .

95 See, ‘A Prophet without Honor’, p. 433. Kennan would make his opposition to the involvement in Vietnam public only in 1968, see Mayers, David A., George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 275–277Google Scholar .

96 Mollow, , Power and Transcendence, pp. 40–45Google Scholar .

97 Morgenthau, , ‘Fragments of an Intellectual Autobiography: 1904–1932’, in Thompson, and Myers, (eds), Truth and Tragedy, pp. 7–8Google Scholar .

98 Morgenthau, ‘Truth and Power’, pp. 13–28. On the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘power’ in Morgenthau's realism see Cozette, ‘Reclaiming the critical dimension of realism’, pp. 9–20.

99 In 1967 he was still claiming that: ‘Intervene we must where our national interest requires it and where our power gives us a chance to succeed. The choice of these occasions will be determined not by sweeping ideological commitments nor by blind reliance upon American power but by a careful calculation of the interests involved and the power available. If the US applies this standard, it will intervene less and succeed more’, Morgenthau, ‘To Intervene or Not to Intervene’, p. 436. For a different interpretation of Morgenthau's critique, which stresses its moral component, see Rafshoon, ‘A Realist's Moral Opposition to War’, pp. 55–77 and Lebow, , The Tragic Vision of Politics, pp. 240–242Google Scholar .

100 See, for example, Morgenthau, Hans, ‘What Ails America’, Truth and Power, pp. 29–39Google Scholar ; Ibid., ‘How Totalitarianism Starts: The Domestic Involvement of the CIA’, Truth and Power, pp. 51–55Google Scholar .

101 On the history and role of intellectuals see Bobbio, Norberto, Politica e cultura (Torino: Einaudi 1955)Google Scholar ; Merod, Jim, The Political Responsibility of the Critic (Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1987)Google Scholar ; Walzer, Michael, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1988)Google Scholar .

102 Morgenthau, ‘We Are Deluding Ourselves’, p. 65.

103 Ibid., p. 73.

104 Morgenthau, , ‘War with China?’, in Vietnam and the US, p. 60Google Scholar ; originally published in The New Republic (3 April 1965). The analogy with the situation in Algeria had also been presented in Morgenthau, Hans, ‘Asia: The American Algeria’, Commentary, 32:1 (1961), pp. 43–47Google Scholar .

105 Giolitti, Giovanni, ‘Parole chiare dell'On. Giolitti’, La Tribuna (2 February 1915)Google Scholar (translation author's own).

106 Morgenthau, ‘War with China?’, p. 60.

107 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Trouble with Kennedy’, Commentary, 33:1 (1962), p. 53Google Scholar .

108 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Impotence of American Power’, Commentary, 36:5 (1963), p. 384Google Scholar .

109 Morgenthau, Hans, ‘The Difference between the Politician and the Statesman’, in The Restoration of American Politics, pp. 104–106Google Scholar .

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