The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War in Vietnam, 1969-1970

Résumé du livre

Focuses on the activities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) that were concerned with the conflicts in Indochina and later Vietnam. The Text appears largely as it was written while the war was still in progress; it has been reviewed for declassification and cleared for release. In the preface, Poole discusses the few revisions that were made and the rationale for leaving the text substantially unaltered. For 1969-1970, it is important to convey the attitudes of senior policymakers without benefit of hindsight. The Nixon administration did not yet look upon South Vietnam as a lost cause. While the JCS had reservations and made them known, the overall tone of their appraisals of the war was one of guarded optimism. A full test of Vietnamization was yet to come. Illus.