Bundy, McGeorge

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McGeorge Bundy

Born March 30, 1919
Boston, Massachusetts
Died September 16, 1996
Boston, Massachusetts

U.S. national security advisor, 1961–1966

McGeorge Bundy played a major role in shaping U.S. military policies toward Vietnam during the early and mid-1960s. During his years as national security advisor, Bundy urged both President John F. Kennedy (see entry) and President Lyndon B. Johnson (see entry) to expand America's military role in the war. By 1965, however, Bundy's confidence in an eventual U.S. victory was badly shaken. His doubts about continued American involvement in the Vietnam War became so great that he resigned from the Johnson administration in early 1966.

Early reputation for brilliance

McGeorge Bundy was born March 30, 1919, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was one of three sons of Harvey H. Bundy, an attorney and government official, and Katharine (Putnam) Bundy. Bundy's parents enrolled their sons in Massachusetts' finest schools, where all three boys excelled in their studies. After graduating from Groton School in 1936, McGeorge applied for admission into Yale University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States. Yale gladly accepted Bundy after he posted the school's first-ever perfect score on its entrance exam.

During his years of study at Yale, Bundy distinguished himself as a brilliant and energetic student. He won numerous academic honors at the school, where he majored in mathematics. But he became even better known around the school for his active involvement in journalism and his interest in both local and national politics. After graduating from Yale in 1940, Bundy was invited to teach U.S. foreign policy at Harvard University. The young scholar soon became one of the most popular instructors at Harvard.

In 1942 Bundy managed to gain acceptance into the U.S. Army despite suffering from extremely poor eyesight. He entered the military as a private but received extensive training as an intelligence officer. He served in the army for the next four years as World War II raged across Europe and the Pacific Rim. During this time he helped devise strategy for a variety of military operations, including major invasions of France and Italy. He left the army in 1946 as a captain.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bundy's image as a brilliant and ambitious young man continued to flourish. He remained a member of the Harvard faculty while simultaneously working his way into powerful political circles. In 1948 and 1949, for example, he served as a political analyst for the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations, and in 1952 he edited a collection of Secretary of State Dean Acheson's public papers. In 1950 he married Mary Buckminster Lothrop, with whom he eventually had four sons.

In 1953 Bundy was named dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This was an amazing honor for someone of Bundy's age—he was only 34 years old at the time—and reflected his growing national reputation as a brilliant administrator and decisive leader. He spent the next several years attending to his duties at Harvard and building strong relationships with a number of prominent American politicians, including John F. Kennedy.

The best and the brightest

In November 1960 Kennedy was elected president of the United States. As Kennedy prepared to take office in January 1961, he asked dozens of bright young men from the nation's most highly regarded universities, companies, and foundations to accept important government posts in his administration. He reserved a special spot in his administration for Bundy, making him his national security advisor. Bundy and the other men selected by Kennedy eventually came to be known as "the Best and the Brightest," a new generation of capable leaders who would guide America into the future.

In earlier presidential administrations, the position of national security advisor had not always been that important. But Kennedy gave Bundy a great deal of authority and relied on him for advice on military policies and other national security issues. For example, Bundy was responsible for overseeing the National Security Council (NSC) and developing the Kennedy administration's overall military and foreign policy strategies. Before long, Bundy was widely known as one of Kennedy's closest and most trusted advisors on a wide range of issues.

In the early 1960s Bundy helped Kennedy reach decisions on many different areas of public policy. But he is best remembered for encouraging the president to increase America's military commitment to the troubled nation of South Vietnam.

South Vietnam had been created only a few years earlier, when Vietnamese forces ended decades of French colonial rule. The 1954 Geneva peace agreement that ended the French-Vietnamese conflict created two countries within Vietnam. North Vietnam was headed by a Communist government under revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh (see entry). South Vietnam, meanwhile, was led by a U.S.-supported government under President Ngo Dinh Diem (see entry).

The Geneva agreement provided for nationwide free elections to be held in 1956 so that the two parts of Vietnam could be united under one government. But U.S. and South Vietnamese officials refused to hold the elections because they feared that the results would give the Communists control over the entire country. When the South refused to hold elections, North Vietnam and its allies in the South—known as the Viet Cong—launched a guerrilla war against Diem's government. The United States responded by sending money, weapons, and advisors to aid in South Vietnam's defense. By the early 1960s, however, Bundy and some other American analysts became concerned that South Vietnam might collapse and trigger a wave of Communist aggression around the globe.

A "hawk" on Vietnam

Bundy firmly believed that South Vietnam could be saved if the United States took a more active role in the conflict. After all, America possessed technology and military power that were far superior to those of North Vietnam. In addition, Bundy interpreted the civil war in Vietnam as a test of American resolve. He felt that the United States needed to show the world that Communist aggression would not be allowed to go unpunished. These feelings, which were shared by many other Kennedy administration "hawks" (supporters of American military involvement in Vietnam), shaped U.S. military policy toward Vietnam for the next several years.

In November 1963 Kennedy was assassinated, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. But Johnson retained Bundy and most other Kennedy officials for his own administration. During his first year as Johnson's national security advisor, Bundy continued to advocate an expansion of the U.S. military role in Vietnam. He and other administration hawks remained certain that as America unleashed more and more of its military power on the Viet Cong and their allies in the North, the Communists would give up the fight.

In 1965, however, Bundy's confidence in an eventual American victory began to crumble. In February of that year he made a personal tour of Vietnam that deeply troubled him. Despite massive amounts of American military and economic aid, the nation seemed to him to be tottering on the brink of a Communist takeover. The "energy and persistence [of the Viet Cong] are astonishing," he warned Johnson in a secret cable message. Bundy also stated that during his travels, he detected a "widespread belief that we [the United States] do not have the will and force and patience and determination to take the necessary action and stay the course." He concluded his message by urging the president to approve "continuous" bombing attacks on North Vietnam and other new military measures.

Over the next several months, the United States dramatically escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War. Johnson approved a major bombing campaign against North Vietnam called Operation Rolling Thunder. He also sent U.S. combat troops to fight in the conflict. But when these actions failed to stop the Communist threat, Bundy became convinced that an American victory in Vietnam was years away.

In early 1966 Bundy's doubts about the war led him to submit his resignation and leave the government. But he never publicly expressed his fears that American involvement in Vietnam was a terrible mistake. Instead, he continued to advise Johnson on an informal basis after assuming the presidency of the Ford Foundation, an organization that supports a wide range of educational, antipoverty, and nation-building programs around the world.

After Bundy's departure, the war continued to drag on with no end in sight. Public opposition exploded across the country, and Johnson's presidency came under intense criticism for its actions in Vietnam. This criticism became even stronger in early 1968, after North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive—a massive attack against American and South Vietnamese positions throughout South Vietnam.

In March 1968 Johnson asked Bundy and other close advisors—known collectively as the "Wise Men"—to meet with him about the war. Johnson hoped that the men could help him devise a strategy to win the war. But to Johnson's great dismay, Bundy and the others urged him to withdraw American troops from Vietnam and begin peace negotiations with the Communists. "I am much affected by my belief that the sentiment in the country on the war has shifted very heavily since the Tet offensive," Bundy told Johnson. "This is not because our people are quitters . . . . What has happened is that a great many people—even very determined and loyal people—have begun to think that Vietnam really is a bottomless pit." A short time later, Johnson announced a halt to the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign and called on North Vietnam to begin peace talks.

Bundy's post-Vietnam career

Bundy remained at the Ford Foundation until 1979, when he joined the faculty of New York University as a professor of history. He taught at the school from 1979 to 1989, during which time he became a notable critic of nuclear arms proliferation around the world. He also wrote two critically acclaimed studies of this issue—Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (1988) and Reducing Nuclear Danger: The Road Away from the Brink (1993).

In 1990 Bundy accepted the chairmanship of the Carnegie Corporation's Committee on Reducing Nuclear Danger. He continued his association with the Carnegie Corporation until 1996, when he died of a heart attack in his home-town of Boston.