1. Schlesinger, Arthur Jr, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Greenwich: Fawcett Publication, 1965), p. 619Google Scholar.

2. Ambrose, Stephen E., “The Ike Age,” New Republic 184 (05 9, 1981): 32; Eisenhower, vol. 2Google Scholar, The President (New York, Simon and Shuster, 1983), p. 185Google Scholar. Eisenhower revisionists provoked a backlash among historians, by the late 1980s, who spotlighted Ike's role committing the U.S. to Vietnam. The revisionists, argued Robert J. McMahon, relied too heavily on his refusal to rescue the French at Dien Bien Phu while downplaying his later policy propping up the “puppet government in Saigon.” In his relations to Third World areas like Vietnam, McMahon insists, Ike underestimated the force of nationalism, confused it with Communism, and aligned the U.S. with “inherently unstable” regimes.” McMahon, , “Eisenhower and Third World Nationalism: A Critique of the Revisionists,” Political Science Quarterly 101 (1986): 457–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Arnold, James R., The First Domino: Eisenhower, the Military and America's Intervention into Vietnam (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991Google Scholar); Anderson, David L., Trapped by Success (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991Google Scholar) Still, Eisenhower's part in the Vietnam tragedy remains obscure in popular memory and some scholarship. In describing the presidential roles, Kimball's, Jeffrey B. anthology, To Reason Why: The Debate About the Causes of the Vietnam War (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990Google Scholar), includes essays only on Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Halberstram's, David study, The Fifties (New York: Villard Books, 1993Google Scholar), published two decades after his acclaimed study on Vietnam, virtually ignores Ike's post-Geneva Vietnam policy despite several pages devoted to his foreign policies. In Robert S. McNamara's writings, brimming with mea culpas for his own misdeeds as Johnson's secretary of defense, Eisenhower's role is nearly eclipsed by his heavy emphasis on the Johnson administration's responsibility for the Vietnam tragedy. See, McNamara, , In Retrospect, The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1995Google Scholar); McNamara, et al. Argument Without End (New York: Public Affairs, 1999Google Scholar).

3. Halberstram, , The Best and the Brightest (Greenwich: Fawcett, 1969), p. 718Google Scholar.

4. Brodie, , “Accidents of History: JFK and LBJ Compared,” in Kimball, ed, To Reason Why, p. 94Google Scholar.

5. McMaster, H. R., Dereliction of Duty (New York: Harper Collins, 1997), pp. 323–24Google Scholar. Most accounts of Johnson's Vietnam role, David M. Barrett observes, fall into two categories: the “personalist,” emphasizing personal flaws of Johnson and/ or his advisers; and the “structural,” stressing external forces, that shaped his Vietnam policy. McMaster exemplifies the former, Barrett the latter. Barrett, , Uncertain Warriors (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1993), p. 5Google Scholar.

6. Brodie, , “Accidents of History: JFK and LBJ Compared,” pp. 195–98Google Scholar. Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense for both Kennedy and Johnson believes Kennedy would have accepted the loss of all of Southeast Asia-rather than send U.S. combat forces into battle. See McNamara, , In Retrospect, pp. 95–97Google Scholar.

7. In line with the principles of “independence, unity and territorial integrity” for Vietnam, the Accords declared, the “military demarcation line [separating the two zones] is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary,” “Geneva Conference: Indo China,” in The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 1: 573Google Scholar (hereafter cited as PP). Eisenhower's “clean break” claimed above is subject to dispute. See Anderson's, comment and my rejoinder below, n. 94Google Scholar.

8. Statement of Policy by the National Security Council on Review of U.S. Policy in the Far East, (c. 08 1954), U.S.-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, 10: 731–37Google Scholar. Even with a stable government in South Vietnam, “the Viet Minh will almost certainly win” the 1956 elections,” concluded a National Intelligence Estimate Report, August 1954, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS), 1952–1954Google Scholar, Vietnam 13: 1905–14Google Scholar. Washington's strategy was to blame Hanoi for the failure to hold elections by demanding conditions for “free elections” which the Communists would surely reject. Unhappily, neither Vietnam cooperated. Diem, southern Vietnam's new ruler, was too weak even to give “lip service,” and appeared disposed to repudiate the Geneva Accords outright rather than “play the game.” The Viet Minh, were ready to counter with “moderate proposals“which would undermine Washington's plans to blame them for the failed elections. See FRUS, 1955–1957, Vietnam, 1: 105, 550, 660Google Scholar; Telegram From the Secretary of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, ibid., pp. 208–209; National Security Report, 05 17, 1955, DRAFT STATEMENT OF U.S. POLICY ON ALL-VIETNAM ELECTIONS, ibid., p. 411; Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs to the Secretary of State, June 8, 1955, ibid., pp. 437, 421–22. The International Commission established to supervise the elections, later reported that in trying to implement the Accords, it “experienced difficulties in North Vietnam, [but] the major part of its difficulties has arisen in South Vietnam.” “Report of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam, 1956–1957,” in Moss, George Donelson, ed., A Vietnam Reader (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991), pp. 50–52Google Scholar.

9. Eisenhower, , Special Message to the Congress on the Mutual Security Programs, 05 21, 1957, PP, 1: 613Google Scholar.

10. Geneva's vague guidelines for implementing the 1956 elections, Anderson claims, “left room” for Washington “to maneuver against communist expansionism” in South Vietnam. Yet, the conflict between U.S. policy and the Geneva provisions was clear enough to spur the campaign to derail the Geneva “disaster,” as Washington regarded it, and provoke international criticism over its rejection of the 1956 elections. Anderson, , Trapped, pp. 62–63,159Google Scholar. The Accords' provision for the “expression of the national will” through unifying elections approximated a “mandate from heaven” which for many Vietnamese already belonged to Ho Chi Minh. ‘“There is no proper grass roots support of any leader in Viet Nam, leaving aside Ho Chi Minh, ’” reported General Lawton J. Collins, Eisenhower's special emissary to evaluate the Vietnam, situation (ibid., p. 106). See also Tang, Truong Nhu, A Viet Cong Memoir (New York: Vintage, 1985), pp. 34–41Google Scholar.

11. The anti-Communist campaign was simply the most provocative issue among Diem's blunders, which included the suppression of village councils, the reversal of Viet Minh land reforms, the anti-Buddhist policies, and the diversion of financial aid to the military while ignoring the pressing need for economic development. The Pentagon Papers (New York Times ed., 1971), pp. 67–78Google Scholar; Anderson, , Trapped, pp. 80, 81, 152–56, 165–66, 97–102Google Scholar.

12. American intelligence reports were close to the enemy's interpretation of the conflict, as McNamara learned during the 1998 dialogues between former American leaders and their Vietnamese foes. After years of struggle against Japanese invaders and French colonialists, Hanoi was in no mood for more war even though it deemed it justified by Washington's violation of the Accords. Ho's orders to the southern allies to refrain from “armed struggle” while the “Diem puppet regime… carried out a bloody fascist repression,” as General Van Tra put it, provoked considerable anger against the North. Hanoi's reluctant intervention in 1959 was a far cry from American claims attributing the war to Communist aggression from the North. See McNamara, , Argument Without End, pp. 179–80; 196–97Google Scholar.

13. Pentagon Papers (NYT ed.), p. 67Google Scholar. See also, PP, 1: 622–27Google Scholar.

14. As a researcher on the Vietnam history project launched by McNamara, Ellsberg was stunned at the “brazen” falsehoods which had shaped his own hawkish views when, for the first time in 1967, he examined the secret documents recording Eisenhower's olicies: Washington's claims asserting that “the accords had created two separate, independent states, North and South Vietnam.” After reviewing Eisenhower's decisions to “overturn” Geneva and support Diem's “police state,” and then the documents recording Truman's support for French colonialism, he could no longer regard Vietnam as a civil war. It was nothing less than “a war of … American aggression,” which he had promoted. These discoveries would help drive him to the rebellious act which, he feared, could lead to life imprisonment: the unleashing of the classified “Pentagon Papers” to the press. Ellsberg, , Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Viking, 2002), pp. 250–75Google Scholar.

15. McNamara, , Retrospect, pp. 321–22Google Scholar.

16. Ibid., pp. 32–33. Given Johnson's tendency to stifle debate, McMaster argues, access to Asian experts was “irrelevant.” McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, p. 400, ftn. 81Google Scholar. But knowledgeable observers reporting during the Vietnam years, also maintained that the purge contributed significantly to the Vietnam tragedy. See Finney, John W., “The Long Trial of John Paton Davies,” New York Times, 08 31, 1969, SM, 7Google Scholar; Reston, James, “Washington: The New China Experts,” New York Times, 02 16, 1966, p. 42Google Scholar. Moreover, Eisenhower's McCarthyized State Department exerted a critical influence in his agonizing decision to stake American policy on Diem against the dire warnings of his trusted emissary, General Collins. See Anderson, , Trapped, pp. 118–19Google Scholar.

17. After testifying on behalf of Davies, White found himself temporarily deprived of his passport essential for reporting on foreign affairs. Thereafter, he shied away from reporting on controversial East Asian issues as the Vietnam crisis worsened. See White, , In Search of History (New York: Warner Books, 1976), pp. 510, 514–18Google Scholar. The State Department purges actually began under President Truman in 1947. Eisenhower, however, actively targeted senior Asian experts who had been protected by Truman's Secretary of State, Dean Acheson. Under Scott McLeod, a McCarthy zealot, many respected officials, including talented China experts like Davies, were tossed overboard. See Schrecker, Ellen, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents, 2nd ed. (New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2002), pp. 43–45Google Scholar; Ambrose, , The President, 2: 63–65Google Scholar.

18. Olson, James S. and Roberts, Randy, Where The Domino Fell, 3rd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 139Google Scholar.

19. Quoted in Ambrose, The President, 2: 208, 173–85Google Scholar.

20. Truong, , Viet Cong Memoir, p. 65Google Scholar. Truong was a non-Communist driven like many others by Diem's despotism to join the National Liberation Front, the Communist dominated political organization which orchestrated the revolution in the South.

21. Herring, George C., America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), p. 56Google Scholar.

22. Arnold, , First Domino, p. 388Google Scholar.

23. Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, PP, 1: 354Google Scholar.

24. Twining, M. F., Chief of Staff, USAF, “Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Assumptions of Training Responsibilities in Indochina,” 08 4, 1954, US-VN Relations, 10: 702Google Scholar; see also, Radford, Arthur, Chairman, JCS for the Secretary of Defense, August 4, 1954 and 09 22, 1954Google Scholar, ibid., pp. 758, 760.

25. Arnold, , First Domino, p. 287Google Scholar; see also FRUS, 1955–1957, p. 412Google Scholar

26. Record of National Security Council Meeting, 10 26, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, vol. 13, Indochina, pp. 2185–86Google Scholar.

27. Telegram From the Special Representative in Vietnam (Collins) to the Department of State, 04 7, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vietnam, 1: 218–21Google Scholar; Collins, J. Lawton, Lightning Joe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press, 1979), p. 408Google Scholar.

28. Quoted in Anderson, David L., “Dwight D. Eisenhower and Wholehearted Support for Ngo Dinh Diem,” in Shadow on the White House: Presidents and the Vietnam War, 1945–1975, Anderson, ed. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1993), pp. 53–56Google Scholar.

29. U.S. Sends Greetings to Vietnam on Anniversary of Independence, 10 25, 1960, PP, 1: 628Google Scholar. See also Address by President Eisenhower Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 04 21, 1956, PP, 1: 609–610Google Scholar.

30. Eisenhower, , “Radio and Television Address to American People on the Need for Mutual Security in Waging the Peace,” 05 21, 1957, PP, 1: 615Google Scholar. See also Eisenhower, , Address at Gettysburg College Convocation, 04 4, 1959, Document 25, PP, 1:626Google Scholar.

31. Despatch From the Ambassador in Vietnam (Durbrow) to the Department of State, Saigon, 03 7, 1960, FRUS, 1958–1960, I, Vietnam, pp. 300–302Google Scholar.

32. Anderson, , Shadow, p. 44Google Scholar.

33. Donnell, Kenneth P. O' and Powers, David F., Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 16Google Scholar. Kennedy had actually submitted a plan for withdrawal later found in the “Pentagon Papers,” according to Schlesinger. Nevertheless, in allowing the commitment to grow, he admits, Vietnam became “the fatal error of his presidency.” Schlesinger, The Cycles of American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), p. 414Google Scholar.

34. President Kennedy's, NBC Interview, 09 9, 1963, PP, 2: 827–8Google Scholar. For examples of Kennedy's, numerous statements endorsing the Vietnam commitment, see PP, 2: 794–831Google Scholar.

35. America's role in Diem's overthrow, McMaster concedes, “saddled the United States with ”responsibility for his successor. The coup, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge cabled Rusk, “launched the U.S. on a course from which there is no respectable turning ”back (McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, pp. 39, 41)Google Scholar.

36. McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 101Google Scholar.

37. Hunt, Michael H., Lyndon Johnson's War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), p. 106Google Scholar.

38. Kaiser, David, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 290Google Scholar.

39. Johnson's advisers, McNamara admits, failed to confront the basic question that had challenged Eisenhower and Kennedy—whether the loss of South Vietnam would threaten American security enough to warrant the deployment of U.S. air and ground forces. McNamara, , Retrospect, pp. 101–102Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., p. 101.

41. Ibid., pp. 124–25. See also Board of National Estimates Memorandum to CIA Director McCone, , 06 9, 1964, FRUS, 1964–68, Vietnam, 1: 484–87Google Scholar

42. See, Memorandum From the Secretary of Defense (McNamara, ) to the President, 03 16, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, 1: 153–67Google Scholar; McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 195Google Scholar; Bundy, Group upon returning from Saigon, 03, 1965, PP, 3: 309–10Google Scholar; Bundy, Wm., Memo for the Secretary, 01 6, 1965Google Scholar, ibid, pp. 684–86.

43. Johnson, , The Vantage Point, Perspectives of the Presidency: 1963–1969 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1971), pp. 147–48Google Scholar.

44. Graham, , Personal History (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), pp. 375–76Google Scholar.

45. See McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 195Google Scholar.

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47. Cooperation between the three Communist powers masked deep hostilities simmering beneath the surface. Soviet documents made available during the 1990s clearly indicate the Soviet Union 's repugnance for war and its efforts to prod both Washington and Hanoi toward a peaceful settlement. China had her own reasons for aiding North Vietnam, including her competitive rivalry with the Soviet Union for leadership of the Communist world. Hanoi played the two powers against each other to squeeze military support from both. When Moscow finally came to the aid of Hanoi, she resented both China 's competitive pressures and Washington 's escalating intervention for forcing her hand. See Gaiduk, I. V., The Soviet Union and the Vietnam War (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1996), passimGoogle Scholar.

48. Beschloss, Michael R., ed., Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963–1964 (New York, Simon and Shuster, 1997), pp. 362, 364–65, 369Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., pp. 363–64.

50. Ibid, p. 377.

51. Ibid., p. 403; Johnson, , Vantage Point, pp. 147–52Google Scholar.

52. PP, 3:287; Congressional Record,Google Scholar 88th Congress, 2nd Session, 18399—18400. In 1966, Fulbright turned his Foreign Relations Committee into a sounding board for opponents denouncing the war.

53. Quoted in Olson, and Roberts, , Where The Domino Fell, p. 109Google Scholar.

54. Ellsberg, , Secrets, pp. 98–101Google Scholar.

55. Thomas, Evan, Robert Kennedy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), pp. 311–15. Kennedy would challenge Johnson and his war policy as a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries of 1968Google Scholar.

56. Corn, David, “Defining John Kerry,” Nation, 273 (07 16, 2001): 15–20Google Scholar.

57. Halberstram, , The Best and the Brightest, p. 796Google Scholar

58. Halberstram, , The Making of a Quagmire, rev. ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964, 1965, 1988), pp. 177–78Google Scholar. Halberstram entertained a “very frail” hope that eleventh-hour desperation might force the Vietnamese factions to unite and mount a viable military force against the enemy.

59. “[The Senators] just got the living hell scared out of them,” Johnson gloated to McNamara, after telling Senator Mike Mansfield he was willing to let Congress decide to declare war or “tuck tail and run.” Despite his anti-war fervor, Mansfield insisted that senators wanted nothing to do with a war decision. After hearing about the president's comment, Senator George Aiken, griped on the Senate floor that Johnson was sending them a war declaration to take himself ‘“off the hook.’” See Beschloss, , Reaching For Glory (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 350–51, n. 6, 351Google Scholar.

60. Lind, , Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous. Military Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1999), p. xGoogle Scholar. Lind's revisionist study contends that, in Johnson's circumstances, he would have been derelict had he abandoned South Vietnam to the Communist bloc without a major struggle. To preserve American credibility, the foundation of the global containment policy, the U.S. needed to escalate the war, accept the loss of about 15,000 American lives and then abandon the Vietnam struggle after 1968 to preserve the political consensus supporting the Cold War on other fronts (Lind, , Vietnam: The Necessary War, pp. ix, x, xv, 256–60)Google Scholar

61. McGovern, George, Grassroots (New York: Random House, 1977), pp. 104–105Google Scholar. Even most early opponents of Johnson's war decisions shied away from advocating outright surrender of South Vietnam, preferring a “negotiated settlement,” which was widely regarded as a prelude to Communist victory.

62. McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 169Google Scholar. See also PP, 3: 287–88; 389–90.

63. Bundy, M. to The President, January 27, 1965, in Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam Papers, ed. Barrett, David M. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997), pp. 101–103;Google ScholarMcNamara, , Retrospect, pp. 167–69Google Scholar. Bundy's memo urging Johnson to change course and the ensuing debates over military policy are hard to square with Kaiser's claims that Johnson never seriously considered an alternative to war and had already approved Pentagon plans for an air war against North Vietnam and “massive deployment” of American ground troops. “Few were as determined as Johnson” to solve the “intractable” Vietnam problem “without military escalation,” McNamara later recalled. See Kaiser, , American Tragedy, pp. 290, 397, 410–11, 443, 447–49;Google ScholarMcNamara, , Argument, pp. 154, 207–208Google Scholar.

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66. Shedding previous inhibitions, Rusk now supported a “major escalation” to counter Communist aggression. The dovish Ball also came on board, McNamara recalled, hoping the bombing would “increase U.S. bargaining power” making possible a “satisfactory political solution.” Ball's own account, however, suggests that his support was a tactical maneuver, in the face of “a unanimous view” among other advisers, to maintain his credibility for deterring future escalations toward war. See McNamara, , Retrospect, n. p. 174; Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), pp. 390–91;Google ScholarReport by Smith, Bromley, “For the President Only, Summary Notes of 545th NSC Meeting and 546th NSC Meeting,” in Barrett, Johnson's Papers, pp. 104–108Google Scholar.

67. The arrival of U.S. ground forces breached a major fire wall–Kennedy's sacrosanct line against sending American boys to fight Asian wars. Hanoi hardly encouraged a diplomatic solution with her demand, following Johnson's olive branch proposal in April, calling for America's unconditional withdrawal from Vietnam before negotiations could begin. See McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, pp. 235–36,260Google Scholar.

68. McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 188Google Scholar. “The specter of U.S. involvement in a major Asian land war was painfully clear,” according to the Pentagon study. PP, 3:462.

69. McNamara, , Retrospect, pp. 188, 205Google Scholar.

70. See PP, 3: 391–92; M. Taylor to The President, 03 11, 1965, in Barrett, , Johnson's Papers, pp. 134–35;Google Scholar Report on Honolulu Meeting of McNamara, R.,Bundy, W., McNaughton, J.T., Ambassador Taylor, General Wheeler, Westmoreland, Admiral Sharp, 04 21, 1965, PP, 3: 705–706Google Scholar.

71. McGeorge, Bundy to the President, “Re: Rand Studies of Viet Cong Motivation and Morale,” 06 28, 1965, Barrett, Johnson's Papers, p. 183;Google ScholarBundy, M. to Chester Cooper, L., NSC Staff, “Re: Summary of Rand's Latest Interrogation of Viet Cong Captives and Defectors,” 07 10, 1965,Google Scholar in ibid., pp. 206–207.

72. Quoted in Kaiser, , American Tragedy, pp. 295–96;Google Scholar See also Editorial Note on JCS Memorandum to Defense Secretary McNamara, , 01 22, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vietnam, 1: 35Google Scholar.

73. Meeting of President, McNamara, , Vance, Clifford and the Generals, 07 22, 1965, in Barrett, Johnson's Papers, pp. 235–42Google Scholar.

74. Quoted in Herring, , America's Longest War, p. 163Google Scholar.

75. “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation [between the president and Eisenhower], by “‘LHB’,” [taking notes for Eisenhower], in Barrett, , Johnson's Papers, pp. 201–202Google Scholar. See also, “Memorandum for the Record Re: Meeting with General Eisenhower, 16 June 1965 by: Gen. Goodpaster, in ibid., pp. 169–70. Eisenhower's hawkish advice in these months, does not necessarily mean he would have decided for war had he been president, involved in the prior advisory sessions and forced to make the actual decisions for war

76. Taylor, Maxwell D.,Swords and Ploughshares (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 347Google Scholar. Swelling the prowar crescendo was a group of distinguished retired leaders including former Secretary of State Dean Acheson—the “Wise Men” as Johnson dubbed them. Saigon's sinking fortunes required a “new role” for the U.S., they concluded at a July 9 meeting–taking a major part in the combat itself,” with “large additional forces and probably much heavier casualties.” Gilpatric, Roswell L. to Bundy, M., 07 9, 1965,Google Scholaribid., 205–06.

77. Miller, , Lyndon, p. 417Google Scholar.

78. McNamara, , Retrospect, pp. 191–92Google Scholar.

79. Meeting of President, McNamara, , Vance, Gen. Wheeler, Gen. Johnson, et al. , 07 22, 1965,Google Scholar in Barrett, , Johnson's Papers, p. 235Google Scholar.

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83. Miller, 413. Weighty studies have faulted Johnson for his flawed advisory system–his failure to develop a coherent forum for debating conflicting views, and his intimidating style which frequently dampened criticism. After banning Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey from advisory sessions for raising objections to Rolling Thunder, McMaster claims, even Ball “would no longer question the general direction of the policy.” McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, pp. 241–42; 325–331;Google ScholarBurke, John P. and Greenstein, Fred I., How Presidents Test Reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965 (New York: Russell Sage Foundations, 1989), pp. 120–25, 284–85Google Scholar. According to Ball's own accounts and documentary evidence, however, he continued to pepper the president with memos opposing the drift toward war. Johnson always read them, after which he would call a meeting and call on Ball to present his views. Barrett also portrays a broader advisory process shaping Johnson's decision-making. Dovish voices commanded his attention even as hawkish advisers dragged him “kicking and screaming” toward escalation. Going beyond formal channels, he turned repeatedly to strong anti-war senators like Fulbright, Russell and Mike Mansfield to evaluate the drift toward war. Despite their substantial agreement with McMaster, Burke and Greenstein indicate that intensive consultation and a search for conflicting points of view was central to Johnson's operating procedure. Ibid., 243; Ball, , The Past Has Another Pattern, pp. 389–403;Google ScholarBarrett, , Uncertain, pp. 24, 25,29, 33, 36,44–46, 50, 59–60Google Scholar.

84. Kearns, Doris, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), pp. 251–53Google Scholar. McMaster links Johnson's Great Society program to his Vietnam failure. His thesis faults Johnson, not for going to war, but for failing to act on the real message from his military advisers: their call for a “hard blow” commitment to the war as the only effective strategy. Fearing that he might alienate Congressional hawks or doves supporting his program, he evaded his duty to make the hard choices: full commitment to war or disengagement from Vietnam. Clinging to a disastrous middle ground, he lied his way gradually into war then pursued a strategy guaranteed to lose it. McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, pp. 107–108, 277, 298–99, 323–34Google Scholar. See also Beschloss, , Reaching, pp. 178, 292, 403;Google ScholarMcNamara, , Restrospect, p. 206Google Scholar. Politics certainly influenced LBJ's Vietnam policy, but his middle course diplomacy, owed much to other factors-his penchant for working toward consensus, for example, and the widespread repugnance for both horns of his dilemma: the dread of either surrendering South Vietnam to the Communists with probable retribution impending or sending American boys into war.

85. Beschloss, , Reaching, pp. 168, 394, 426Google Scholar.

86. PP, 3:476–77.

87. McNamara, , Retrospect, p. 206Google Scholar.

88. Anderson, , Shadow, p. 87Google Scholar.

89. Taylor, , Swords and Ploughshares, p. 174Google Scholar.

90. Ibid.

91. Quoted in Lind, , Vietnam: The Necessary War, p. 135Google Scholar. Kennan was the major architect of Truman's Containment policy launched in 1947. Pulling out of a war in progress was far more difficult than avoiding it in the first place. For Nixon, the only other president to grapple with that problem, it took four more destructive years and 27,000 American lives to fulfill his 1968 campaign pledge to end the American fighting.

92. Even the sympathetic Ball fingered Johnson's character as a significant factor leading to the Vietnam tragedy. Boasting that he was “not going to be the first President to lose a war,” Ball observed, he lacked the inner strength to “face the consequences of withdrawal.” Ball, , The Past Has Another Pattern, p. 422Google Scholar.

93. In 1967, Ellsberg put the “hard question” to Bobby Kennedy: “Would JFK really have been willing to accept defeat, to see Saigon go Communist, as the alternative to sending the troops?” ‘“Nobody, can say for sure what my brother would actually have done, in the actual circumstances of 1964 or ‘65,’” Kennedy replied. Even President Kennedy “‘couldn't have said that in ‘61.’” Ellsberg, , Secrets, pp. 193–98Google Scholar. By many accounts, Kennedy was psychologically more disposed than Johnson to accept a Communist victory over sending American troops into battle. On the other hand, by 1965, he would have been in a deeper hole than Johnson, having been responsible, since 1961, for the descent into the Vietnam quagmire.

94. The “sharp break,” in this context, refers to the political rupture in 1954, which dictated a new political order for the Vietnamese and the U.S. Ideological and political pressures remained. Given the “loss of China,” the Korean stalemate, the global cold war, the successful covert operations in Iran and Guatemala and Eisenhower's “New Look” diplomacy, Anderson argues, “abandoning South Vietnam to the communists” was an unrealistic option for him. Anderson, , Trapped, pp. 21–22, 66–67Google Scholar. His perspective reminds us that alternatives are clearer to historians with 20-20 hindsight than to political leaders grappling with the dilemmas of the day.

95. Quoted from “Excerpts from Speech Given by President Johnson at Johns Hopkins University,” 04 7, 1965, in Moss, Vietnam Reader, pp. 84–85Google Scholar. McMaster (like many historians) emphasizes Johnson's congenital lying in his blistering critique of LBJ's Vietnam folly. Significantly, his comments on Johnson's oft quoted Johns Hopkins address, completely ignored the warped history at the heart of his war rationale: North Vietnam's aggression against “the independent nation of South Viet-Nam … is the heartbeat of the war.” See McMaster, , Dereliction of Duty, 259–60Google Scholar. By 1965, Hanoi's increasing intervention certainly reinforced that perception for most Americans, including Ellsberg–until he studied the Eisenhower documents. As an insider, he had participated in the deception pervading Johnson's defense department. (One of his assignments was a rush order for six “alternate lies” for a McNamara press conference.) Only after examining the pre-1960 documents, did he conclude “that the pattern of executive deception” had shaped America's Vietnam policy from the beginning. Ellsberg, , Secrets,, p. 41, 414Google Scholar.

96. Ellsberg, , Secrets, p. 274Google Scholar.

97. Quoted in Ambrose, , The President, 2: 662–63Google Scholar.

98. Ball, , The Past Has Another Pattern, p. 375Google Scholar.