Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign Policy 1945-75

This book is about American foreign policy during the cold war between 1945 and 1975, seeking to analyze and explain why Indochina and Vietnam became so crucial in American foreign policy, ending in 1968 by becoming its very centerpiece and its almost exclusive concern.

This study of ten fateful decisions made on Indochina between 1961-75 highlights the ascent of the civilian militarists and of strategy over diplomacy in United States policymaking and reveals the inexorably interlinked and escalating character of the decisions and the central purpose of American presidents: not to have to face the expected domestic political consequences of defeat in Indochina. As a result, we were led into a prolonged stalemate in which "acting" and the management of programs became a more important preoccupation than thinking about our purposes and values, in which analysis become wholly subjective and therefore defective, and in which decision-making occurred in a closed system which did not allow for divergent inputs.