The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked

by Leslie H. Gelb, Richard K. Betts Arnold A. Saltzman Profes, Fareed Zakaria CNN (Foreword by)

Overview

""If a historian were allowed but one book on the American involvement in Vietnam, this would be it." — Foreign Affairs When first published in 1979, four years after the end of one of the most divisive conflicts in the United States, The Irony of Vietnam raised eyebrows. Most students of the war argued that the United States had "stumbled into a quagmire in Vietnam through hubris and miscalculation," as the New York Times's Fox Butterfield put it. But the perspective of time and the opening of documentary sources, including the Pentagon Papers, had allowed Gelb and Betts to probe deep into the decisionmaking leading to escalation of military action in Vietnam. The failure of Vietnam could be laid at the door of American foreign policy, they said, but the decisions that led to the failure were made by presidents aware of the risks, clear about their aims, knowledgeable about the weaknesses of their allies, and under no illusion about the outcome.

The book offers a picture of a steely resolve in government circles that, while useful in creating consensus, did not allow for alternative perspectives. In the years since its publication, The Irony of Vietnam has come to be considered the seminal work on the Vietnam War.

"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815726784
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/31/2016
Series:	A Brookings Classic
Edition description:	With a new foreword
Pages:	436
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

"Leslie H. Gelb is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former columnist at The New York Times, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. Gelb has worked as a senior official in the State and Defense departments. Richard K. Betts is a professor of political science at Columbia University. He was a Senior Fellow and Research Associate at the Brookings Institution and has taught at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Professor Betts has also served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as a consultant to the National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency. Professor Betts is a member of the National Commission on Terrorism."

Table of Contents

Foreword Fareed Zakaria ix

Preface to the Classic Edition xiii

Abbreviations xxi

Introduction 1

Part 1 Decisions: Getting into Vietnam

1 Patterns, Dilemmas, and Explanations 9

Patterns

Dilemmas

A Range of Explanations

Stereotypes Fail

Summary: Three Propositions

2 Recurrent Patterns and Dilemmas from Roosevelt to Eisenhower 26

"Hot Potato" Briefings

The "Asian Berlin"

The Roosevelt Administration

The Truman Administration

The Eisenhower Administration

3 Picking up the Torch: The Kennedy Administration 66

Fastening the Commitment: 1961

Buildup and Breakdown

Taking the Reins: 1963

4 Intervention in Force: The Johnson Administration, I 89

Preparing for Pressure: 1964

Crossing the Rubicon: Early 1965

Setting the Pattern of Perseverance: Fate 1965

5 Coming Home to Roost: The Johnson Administration, II 130

On the Tiger's Back: 1966-67

Debate, Diplomacy, and Disillusionment

Off the Tiger's Back: The Reckoning of 1968

Part 2 Goals: The Imperative Not to Lose

6 National Security Goals and Stakes 163

The Cautious Route to Commitment

Exploring the Security Issue

The Domino Theory

7 Domestic Political Stakes 182

The Two Phases of American Policy on Vietnam

Practical Political Considerations

8 The Bureaucracy and the Inner Circle 207

Career Services and U.S. Stakes in Vietnam

Pressure from the Top and from the Bottom

Concluding Observations about the Imperative not to Lose

Part 3 Means: The Minimum Necessary and the Maximum Feasible

9 Constraints 229

Four Strategies for Winning

The Fate of the "Winning" Strategies

Building and Breaching "Firebreaks"

10 Pressures and the President 252

Pressures to Do Both More and Less

Presidential Responses

Presidential Management of the Political System

How the System Helped the President

Strategy and Polities: The Presidents' Dilemmas

Part 4 Perceptions: Realism, Hope, and Compromise

11 Optimism, Pessimism, and Credibility 279

Contradictions and Hedging

The Roots of Internal Estimates

The Cycle of Highs and Lows

Estimates and Escalation

12 The Strategy of Perseverance 302

The Stalemated War

Elements of the Strategy

Part 5 Conclusions

13 The Lessons of Vietnam 325

Nixon's and Ford's Policies

How the System Worked

Two Schools of Thought on the Lessons of Vietnam

Recommendations

Documentary Appendix 349

Bibliographical Note 355

Notes 357

Index 399

Table and Figures

Table 1 Proportion of the Public Favoring Various U.S. Vietnam Policies, 1966, 1967 146

Figure 1 Trends in Support for the War in Vietnam, 1965-71 145

Figure 2 Trends in Support for the War in Vietnam, by Partisanship, 1965-71 147