Vietnam War - United States - Political Aspects, Vietnam War - General & Miscellaneous, U.S. Politics & Government - 1968-1977, 20th Century American History - Relations - General & Miscellaneous, Asia, Australasia & Oceania - Diplomatic Relations with th
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Overview
More than twenty years have passed since American military personnel finally withdrew from Vietnam, yet haunting questions remain about our involvement there. Perhaps the most persistent of these - and certainly the most unanswerable - is the question of what would have happened if President Kennedy had lived beyond 1963. Would he have ended American involvement in Vietnam? For many Americans, Oliver Stone's powerful film JFK answered the question by leaving no doubt that before his assassination Kennedy had determined to quit Vietnam. Yet the historical record offers a much more complex answer. In this fresh look at the archival evidence, noted scholars take up the challenge to provide us with their conclusions about the early decisions that put the United States on the path to the greatest American tragedy since the Civil War. The tensions and turmoil that accompanied those decisions reveal the American presidency at the center of a storm of conflicting advice. The book is divided into four sections. Part one delves into the political context in which the early decisions were made, while part two considers the military context. Part three raises the intriguing questions of Kennedy's and Johnson's roles in the conflict, particularly the thorny issue of whether Kennedy did, in fact, intend to withdraw from Vietnam and whether Johnson reversed that policy. Part four reveals an uncanny parallel between early Soviet policy toward Hanoi and U.S. policy toward Saigon.Editorials
Booknews
Ten essays from a conference at the LBJ Library in Austin, October 1993 uncover fresh archival evidence regarding the decisions during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that put the US on the path to the war. They cover the political context, the military context, Kennedy and Johnson, and the Soviet dimension. A major theme is assessing Oliver Stone's assertion that Kennedy was prepared to leave Vietnam and was killed to prevent the action. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.Book Details
Published
January 1, 1997
Publisher
Austin : University of Texas Press, c1997.
Pages
238
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780292728004