The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked

by Leslie H. Gelb, Richard K. Betts Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, Fareed Zakaria (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:	9780815726791
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/31/2016
Series:	A Brookings Classic
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	486
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Leslie H. Gelb is among America's most prominent foreign policy experts. A Pulitzer Prize winner, former correspondent for the New York Times, and senior official in the state and defense departments, he is currently president emeritus and board senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he served as president from 1993 to 2003. When he conceived of The Irony of Vietnam, which was awarded the American Political Science Association's Woodrow Wilson Award, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.Richard K. Betts is an adjunct senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Arnold A. Saltzman professor of war and peace studies, as well as director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and director of the international security policy program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. On the faculty of Harvard University when he began work on The Irony of Vietnam, he completed it while a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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