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WARNINGS OF DOMESTIC CRISIS. In March 1968, as President Johnson pondered Westmoreland's request for an additional 205,000 troops, which would have brought U.S. force levels in South Viet Nam to more than 700,000, one Pentagon official warned the White House that continued escalation of the war would result in "a domestic crisis of unprecedented proportions." Contended Paul Warnke, then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs: "It will be difficult to convince critics that we are not destroying South Viet Nam in order to 'save it' and that we genuinely want peace talks...
According to a nationwide poll, 66% of the Vietnamese people are aware of the U.S. troop withdrawal. Of these, 56% approve of the U.S. departure -possibly because they feel spurned -and do not appear to be overly concerned about the consequences. While 21% of this group think the position of the North Vietnamese will be strengthened, 38% foresee only a short-term problem that the South Vietnamese can handle. A scant 15%, however, believe that ARVN is strong enough to maintain control without any hitches...
KENNEDY ON TROOP COMMITMENTS. During the early months of his Administration, President John F. Kennedy tried to maneuver the South Vietnamese into requesting assistance from American troops. Kennedy dispatched then-Vice President Johnson to Viet Nam in May 1961 with orders to "encourage" President Ngo Dinh Diem to ask for U.S. ground troops. Two months before, Kennedy had authorized secret raids against North Viet Nam. Diem resisted American pressure at first, arguing that the presence of American troops would violate the 1954 Geneva Agreements and open his administration to criticism as a puppet government. But in October. Diem made...
...will and the capability to continue." The bleak prognosis, coupled with a request for a 206,756-troop increase, came at a time when military and civilian leaders within the Johnson Administration were characterizing Tet as an allied victory that had left the Viet Cong crippled and ineffective...
...brought the same technological assurance to the war in Viet Nam. At first he was too busy with reorganization to notice it. But as it grew, he willingly took command of what came to be called "McNamara's war." In 1964, he made his famous pronouncement that American troops would be home by Christmas of 1965. When that did not happen, he pressed hard at the White House for a greater troop commitment. He was mesmerized by the feat of getting the forces to Viet Nam: "We put 100,000 men across the beach in 120 days...