(not to mention HCM being a nationalist first, communist second).
Uhhh. Let's put it this way: Ho survived the 1930s. There's pretty much one way you did that, and it is by being solidly bound to the security apparatus of the Soviet Party. Were Togliatti or Nagy nationalists first? I'd argue yes, but from a left critique, not from the plain and simple meaning of "nationalist."
A provocation like the GoTI, given the hawks in Congress and within his own party, would be difficult to ignore.
There were multiple prior provocations in real life, which actually happened. But the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the one chosen. The flimsiness and transparency of US policy in this era is considerable.
On the other hand, we know as early as 1961 Kennedy was perceptive enough to concede Laos was a lost cause. He seems like he was a pretty astute guy. Is it realistic that he could come to a similar, but slightly different, conclusion regarding Vietnam?
Kennedy was also amateurish, he surrounded himself with buffoons, he locked LBJ out of his circle, and he was given to war-mongering adventures. Perceptive and astute are some of his real qualities. So are boyishness, dilettantism and an inability to control large bureaucratic structures through their secretaries.
What's the deal with Ho though? Because the Vietnamese Worker's Party did operate as a cabinet government, not as a dictatorial government, and a deal not involving reunification under VWP control will be rejected, probably by saying that the NFL is an independent political movement etc. In the end it doesn't matter whether Ho is more conventionally nationalist than he is a Soviet nomenklatura: the VWP are nomenklatura and they're quite happy to put a nationalist and electoralist fig leaf over a negotiation to reunify.
The third dimension here is, as always, the real revolution in the South. Land redistribution under primitive socialist communes was producing a developing class consciousness amongst rural workers. The capacity for this group to voice its opinions was burnt on a bonfire in 1968 with the destruction of much of the People's Liberation Armed Forces (the "Vietcong" mainline, provincial and local forces).
* * *
In 1964 Kennedy sees that the RVN is failing. He briefly considers executing its president, but the idea of killing foreign heads of state—one of the few widely acknowledged crimes in international law—is deeply distasteful to him, probably because Robert was pissing him off last night. Kennedy has a brainwave and tries to set up some shuttle diplomacy.
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam are happy to talk, and talk, and talk. The first year relates to the presence of negotiators, specifically the RVN and NFL themselves. Then the RVN negotiators apply similar tactics. In 1966 progress is made, particularly under the threat that the limited US advisors will be withdrawn. Kennedy calls Diem's bluff and starts removing helicopter pilots. This returns the RVN to the table.
Kennedy expanded the advisor system in 1964, increasing the number of "special" forces engaged in Vietnam. The majority of advisors are helicopter pilots and crew or APC advisors and crew. The "special" forces are seen as a low cost COIN solution, as they involve the volunteer sections of the US armed forces. The job is seen as highly desirable amongst this new light infantry as a chance to get their war on. Many of them become entrapped by ARVN methods of operation, and in particular RVN / CIA civil programmes of questionable worth. Kennedy is fully briefed on these.
The problem is, however, that in 1966 the NFL declared a provisional government, based on its expanding power and control of regional capitals. This is the same year Diem tries the same ultimatum threat on Kennedy to demand further forces. While there is a strong push from below in the US government and military industrial complex to expand the war, particularly in light of numerous provocations in the Gulf of Tonkin by DRVN water craft (some only radar reported), Kennedy decides to back down (cf: Cuba).
It doesn't matter, because the PLAF is defeating the ARVN in the field in 1967 consistently, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government controlled by the National Liberation Front (itself a coalition) enters into a coalition government with the newly formed for the purpose *Buddhist Reform Party in late 1967.
Kennedy uses this as a direct threat to Thailand and the Philippines that bad puppets who do not tow the line will not be defended at excess cost. Both Thai and the Philippine elites start tending to the garden both of limited land reform to placate rather than satisfy, but more importantly to the repressive capacity of their armies. Plenty of US trained special forces soldiers get large and happy consultancies where they can replay the terrors of the ARVN's domestic policing policy out again, with the same CIA as before.
Meanwhile, since 1959 in some areas Vietnamese rural workers have been organising for a great revolution of national self-determination (freedom from Catholic landlord), of land distribution (freedom from landlords), and in most areas of socialisation (abolition of the possibility of landlords through voluntary or involuntary collectivisation). While the VWP controlled the military through the NFL, they didn't control the vibe or the narrative in the same way. There is a central block of resistance to policy in the villages, but this block is disorganised. Demobbed PLAF men want to marry and settle, but stresses and strains, including the changing politics of the NFL are confusing.
In 1968 the election to reunify is a 99% type election. The real result would have been in the high 80s to 90s anyway. There is a wave of Catholic flight from Vietnam, but it is small from our perspective.
The wave of Chinese flight is, from ATL Vietnamese perspective, huge. From OTL perspective it isn't as great. The "war economy" expanded these resentments greatly.
The VWP never manages to control the relatively independence of the revolutionary southern villages. The chief line of the VWP moves over into industrial development, and the new urban proletariat is never as noisesome as the older rural working class in the South.
* * *
Kennedy is mostly remembered from a military / political perspective for his brutal role in the Indonesian Civil War.
yours,
Sam R.