The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: July 1965-January 1968

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: July 1965-January 1968
Author: William Conrad Gibbons
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 1986
Genre: Indochinese War, 1946-1954
ISBN:

"This is a study of U.S. government policymaking during the 30 years of the Vietnam war, 1945-75, beginning with the 1945-1960 period. Although focusing on the course of events in Washington and between Washington and U.S. officials on the scene, it also depicts major events and trends in Vietnam to which the U.S. was responding, as well as the state of American public opinion and public activity directed at supporting or opposing the war."--Preface.

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part III

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part III
Author: William Conrad Gibbons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400861535

Part III, which begins in January 1965 and ends in January 1967, treats the watershed period of U.S. involvement in the war, from President Johnson's decision to bomb North Vietnam and to send U.S. ground forces into South Vietnam, through the buildup of military forces and political cadres required by the new U.S. role in the war. This volume examines Johnson's policymaking, his interaction with military advisors and with Congressional critics such as Mike Mansfield, and his reactions as protests against the war began to grow. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part II
Author: William Conrad Gibbons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400858135

This searching analysis of what has been called America's longest war" was commissioned by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to achieve an improved understanding of American participation in the conflict. Part II covers the period from Kennedy's inauguration through Johnson's first year in office. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV

The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part IV
Author: William Conrad Gibbons
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 986
Release: 2014-07-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 140085296X

This fourth volume of a five-part policy history of the U.S. government and the Vietnam War covers the core period of U.S. involvement, from July 1965, when the decision was made to send large-scale U.S. forces, to the beginning of 1968, just before the Tet offensive and the decision to seek a negotiated settlement. Using a wide variety of archival sources and interviews, the book examines in detail the decisions of the president, relations between the president and Congress, and the growth of public and congressional opposition to the war. Differences between U.S. military leaders on how the war should be fought are also included, as well as military planning and operations. Among many other important subjects, the financial effects of the war and of raising taxes are considered, as well as the impact of a tax increase on congressional and public support for the war. Another major interest is the effort by Congress to influence the conduct of the war and to place various controls on U.S. goals and operations. The emphasis throughout this richly textured narrative is on providing a better understanding of the choices facing the United States and the way in which U.S. policymakers tried to find an effective politico-military strategy, while also probing for a diplomatic settlement. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Eugene McCarthy

Eugene McCarthy
Author: Dominic Sandbrook
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307425770

Eugene McCarthy was one of the most fascinating political figures of the postwar era: a committed liberal anti-Communist who broke with his party’s leadership over Vietnam and ultimately helped take down the political giant Lyndon B. Johnson. His presidential candidacy in 1968 seized the hearts and fired the imaginations of countless young liberals; it also presaged the declining fortunes of liberalism and the rise of conservatism over the past three decades. Dominic Sandbrook traces Eugene McCarthy’s rise to prominence and his subsequent failures, and makes clear how his story embodies the larger history of American liberalism over the last half century. We see McCarthy elected from Minnesota to the House and then to the Senate, part of a new liberal movement that combined New Deal domestic policies and fierce Cold War hawkishness, a consensus that produced huge electoral victories until it was shattered by the war in Vietnam. As the situation in Vietnam escalated, many liberals, like McCarthy, found themselves increasingly estranged from the anti-Communism that they had supported for nearly two decades. Sandbrook recounts McCarthy’s growing opposition to President Johnson and his policies, which culminated in McCarthy’s stunning near-victory in the New Hampshire presidential primary and Johnson’s subsequent withdrawal from the race. McCarthy went on to lose the nomination to Hubert Humphrey at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which secured his downfall and led to Richard Nixon’s election, but he had pulled off one of the greatest electoral upsets in American history, one that helped shape the political landscape for decades. These were tumultuous times in American politics, and Sandbrook vividly captures the drama and historical significance of the period through his intimate portrait of a singularly interesting man at the center of it all.

1961-1964

1961-1964
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 1986
Genre:
ISBN: 9780691077154

General William E. DePuy

General William E. DePuy
Author: Henry G. Gole
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2008-09-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813173019

From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, the United States Army was a demoralized institution in a country in the midst of a social revolution. The war in Vietnam had gone badly and public attitudes about it shifted from indifference, to acceptance, to protest. Army Chief of Staff General Creighton Abrams directed a major reorganization of the Army and appointed William E. DePuy (1919–1992) commander of the newly established Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), in 1973. DePuy already had a distinguished record in positions of trust and high responsibility: successful infantry battalion command and division G-3 in World War II by the age of twenty-five; Assistant Military Attaché in Hungary; detail to CIA in the Korean War; alternating tours on the Army Staff and in command of troops. As a general officer he was General Westmoreland's operations officer in Saigon; commander of the 1st Infantry Division in Vietnam; Special Assistant to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Assistant Vice Chief of Staff, Army. But it was as TRADOC Commander that DePuy made his major contribution in integrating training, doctrine, combat developments, and management in the U.S. Army. He regenerated a deflated post-Vietnam Army, effectively cultivating a military force prepared to fight and win in modern war. General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War is the first full-length biography of this key figure in the history of the U.S. Army in the twentieth century. Author Henry G. Gole mined secondary and primary sources, including DePuy's personal papers and extensive archival material, and he interviewed peers, subordinates, family members, and close observers to describe and analyze DePuy's unique contributions to the Army and nation. Gole guides the reader from DePuy's boyhood and college days in South Dakota through the major events and achievements of his life. DePuy was commissioned from the ROTC six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, witnessed poor training and leadership in a mobilizing Army, and served in the 357th Infantry Regiment in Europe—from the bloody fighting in Normandy until victory in May 1945, when DePuy was stationed in Czechoslovakia. Gole covers both major events and interesting asides: DePuy was asked by George Patton to serve as his aide; he supervised clandestine operations in China; he served in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff during the debate over "massive retaliation" vs. "flexible response"; he was instrumental in establishing Special Forces in Vietnam; he briefed President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House. DePuy fixed a broken Army. In the process his intensity and forcefulness made him a contentious figure, admired by some and feared by others. He lived long enough to see his efforts produce American victory in the Gulf War of 1991. In General William E. DePuy, Gole presents the accomplishments of this important military figure and explores how he helped shape the most potent military force in the history of the world.

The Powell Doctrine and US Foreign Policy

The Powell Doctrine and US Foreign Policy
Author: Luke Middup
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317019598

The Vietnam War is one of the longest and most controversial in US history. This book seeks to explore what lessons the US military took from that conflict as to how and when it was appropriate for the United States to use the enormous military force at its disposal and how these lessons have come to influence and shape US foreign policy in subsequent decades. In particular this book will focus on the evolution of the so called ’Powell Doctrine’ and the intellectual climate that lead to it. The book will do this by examining a series of case studies from the mid-1970s to the present war in Afghanistan.

AMERICA WINS IN FOREIGN POLICY BUT FAILS IN DOMESTIC POLICY

AMERICA WINS IN FOREIGN POLICY BUT FAILS IN DOMESTIC POLICY
Author: Dr. George Joseph K. PhD
Publisher: GOD JESUS PROOF ACADEMY
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2015-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

The ultimate defeat of a nation begins at home. When the ethical values of the people at the personal, family and social levels degenerate, the spiritual, intellectual and physical health of the nation also gets weakened. Mankind has only two kinds of core values: some religions command to love even the enemies while others command to kill the enemies. USA is not just the most powerful nation in the world. It is also the most coveted society in the world, because of its highest quality value system due to Biblical Christian faith. Ultimately there is only one God, one mankind, one problem, one solution, and hence there can have only one value system for mankind. But the shadow of a great global tension and suicidal mutual conflict, caused by the many contradictory god-views, religions, worldviews, truth claims, ideologies and value systems, is right now visible. Defending the high ideal of loving the enemies could be easy. But the ultimate challenge of foreign policy is about practicing the high ideals of the nation even in the process of defending those ideals, in a crooked and inimical world. The biggest dilemma in US foreign policy is whether it can practice its value of even loving its enemies, and still exist as a nation to defend it values? Practicing the values and defending the values should go hand in hand. A very judicial combination of practicing the values and defending those who hold the value system, are essential due to individual eternal consequences. To defend the values of freedom, unfortunately the USA had to succumb to death and murder, during the cold war, in effect failing to practice its values in the process of defending it. Hence the struggle confronting individuals from the family level to the international levels is the struggle of practicing the high values at the real life situations. The shocking truth is that victorious Christian life always demands self sacrifice. But there are false gods, religions and value systems whose followers don’t have to follow any of these values, and hence have an easy life. It is high time to realize that anything that comes in the name of any god, religion or worldview is not safe. The core values function as the touchstone for testing the quality of any god, religion, worldview or truth claim. Mankind cannot peacefully survive, if communities of people don’t have good values and morality to practice. Faulty definitions of freedom and secularism have led to the growth of evil to such levels where now people will have to resort to killing for survival. Hence the state governments must implement the right view of secularism. It will be suicidal to any society, to allow anyone to promote evil values, in the name of religious freedom and secularism. It should become the primary responsibility of the supreme legal system in any nation to examine the basic documents of the religions, identify and declare which ones contain unhealthy values affecting the character of the people. The State should not allow any group to promote and practice unhealthy values in the label of any religion. The values of the Christian faith are undeniable, that no legal system can deny these values, and the evils which Christian faith prohibits, no legal system can approve. It stands for loving enemy, and telling the truth. Those who reject Christian faith can never stand on a more logical faith. It is written in the Bible that Jesus died on the cross for mankind, and rose from the dead on the third day. Those who have the wisdom to believe these plain facts, will be able to believe that Jesus is in fact the true God in human form, and will worship Him.

Into the Quagmire

Into the Quagmire
Author: Brian VanDeMark
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 1995-05-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195357191

In November of 1964, as Lyndon Johnson celebrated his landslide victory over Barry Goldwater, the government of South Vietnam lay in a shambles. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor described it as a country beset by "chronic factionalism, civilian-military suspicion and distrust, absence of national spirit and motivation, lack of cohesion in the social structure, lack of experience in the conduct of government." Virtually no one in the Johnson Administration believed that Saigon could defeat the communist insurgency--and yet by July of 1965, a mere nine months later, they would lock the United States on a path toward massive military intervention which would ultimately destroy Johnson's presidency and polarize the American people. Into the Quagmire presents a closely rendered, almost day-by-day account of America's deepening involvement in Vietnam during those crucial nine months. Mining a wealth of recently opened material at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and elsewhere, Brian VanDeMark vividly depicts the painful unfolding of a national tragedy. We meet an LBJ forever fearful of a conservative backlash, which he felt would doom his Great Society, an unsure and troubled leader grappling with the unwanted burden of Vietnam; George Ball, a maverick on Vietnam, whose carefully reasoned (and, in retrospect, strikingly prescient) stand against escalation was discounted by Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy; and Clark Clifford, whose last-minute effort at a pivotal meeting at Camp David failed to dissuade Johnson from doubling the number of ground troops in Vietnam. What comes across strongly throughout the book is the deep pessimism of all the major participants as things grew worse--neither LBJ, nor Bundy, nor McNamara, nor Rusk felt confident that things would improve in South Vietnam, that there was any reasonable chance for victory, or that the South had the will or the ability to prevail against the North. And yet deeper into the quagmire they went. Whether describing a tense confrontation between George Ball and Dean Acheson ("You goddamned old bastards," Ball said to Acheson, "you remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of buzzards sitting on a fence and letting the young men die") or corrupt politicians in Saigon, VanDeMark provides readers with the full flavor of national policy in the making. More important, he sheds greater light on why America became entangled in the morass of Vietnam.