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FOREWORD to
Part I: 1945-1961
The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War
Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships
For most
Americans, the Vietnam war was a national tragedy, and for
many it was also an intense personal tragedy.
Beginning in 1945 as a revolution against France, it
eventually became a war against communist control of state
of Indochina. Before it ended, 5 1/2 million American
military personnel and thousands of American civilians had
served in the area; 58,000 Americans had been killed, and
more than 150,000 were wounded and hospitalized. War
deaths from both sides amounted to at least 1,300,000 for
the period between 1965 and 1975, approximately 45 percent
of which were noncombatant civilians. Almost as many
deaths, most of them civilians, were said to have occurred
during the period 1945-54.
Sometimes
called America's "longest war," it was also one of the most
expensive in our history, costing an estimated $150 billion
in direct expenses, and probably more than $500 billion in
total costs, which is an amount nearly equal to the size of
our national debt in today's currency.
The Vietnam war
had a profound effect on America. It helped to unravel
a general foreign policy consensus, alienate many young
people, and create doubt about the viability of our
government's policies. In its wake, new divisions
emerged between Congress and the Executive, making it more
difficult to reestablish the cooperation, trust, and
continuity needed to fashion an effective bipartisan foreign
policy.
Thus, by any
standard, the Vietnam war represented an enormous
commitment, and a grievous loss.
The Congress of
the United States shares with the Executive the
responsibility for decisions that led to our involvement in
the Vietnam war and for approving the personnel and funds it
required. Only by examining those decisions can we
gain from this bitter experience the full understanding
needed to act more wisely in the future.
It has been
with this goal in mind that the Committee on Foreign
Relations under the chairmanship of Senator John Sparkman
asked the Congressional Research Service to conduct an
in-depth study of the roles and relationships of Congress
and the Executive in the Vietnam war.
-Charles H. Percy, Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations
This study is
being prepared by Dr. William Conrad Gibbons, Specialist in
U.S. Foreign Policy in the Foreign Affairs and National
Defense Division.
-Gilbert Guide, Director of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations
The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War
Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships
| Part I: 1945-1961 |
This study seeks to
describe and to analyze the course of U.S. public
policymaking during the 30 years of the Vietnam war,
beginning with [Part I] on the 1945-61 period.
It does not seek to judge or to assess
responsibility, but it does attempt to locate
responsibility, to describe roles, and to indicate
why and how decisions were made. |
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| Part II: 1961-1964 |
This volume, which is
part of an overall study of the roles and
relationships of the Executive and the Congress in
the Vietnam war being prepared for the Committee on
Foreign Relations, describes events during the
1961-64 period as the United States became
progressively more involved in the struggle taking
place in Vietnam.
Click here to read the first
chapter of Part II |
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Part III: January-
July 1965 |
This third part of The
U.S. Government and the Vietnam War--a study of
policymaking during thirty years of U.S.
involvement, 1945-1975--covers the watershed period
from the decisions in February-March 1965 to launch
the air war against the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (North Vietnam) and to begin sending U.S.
ground forces to the Republic of Vietnam (South
Vietnam), to the decision of President Lyndon B.
Johnson in July 1965 to commit United States ground
forces to defend South Vietnam. "We did not
choose to be the guardians at the gate," he
announced on July 28, "but there is no one else...
We will stand in Vietnam." |
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| Part IV: July 1965-January
1968 |
Book Description
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.
First Sentence:
"On July 28. 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson
announced that the United States was deploying
addition troops to South Vietnam and declared that
the U.S. would use its forces to defend South
Vietnam from the "growing might and grasping
ambition of Asian communism."
The Best Available Serious Vietnam War Study
Review by Bob Starr
This is the fourth and largest volume of a
mammoth five-volume study (volume five is not yet
complete). This review applies to both this volume
and to the study in general.
The Gibbons Study is the largest, most balanced, and
most complete study of US Government Vietnam policy
currently available. Its goal is much like that of
the Pentagon Papers, and in size it is just as big
as the analysis section of that study. However, it
is much more comprehensive, using resources (like
the LBJ library) which were unavailable in the late
60s. It is all original analysis, and contains only
a few pieces of contemporary primary documents
(unlike the Pentagon Papers, which contains a
million words of documents).
The study was commissioned by the Senate Foreign
Relations committee in the late 1970s, and the work
was done by Gibbons, a researcher in the
Congressional Research Service of the Library of
Congress. True to his mission, Gibbons keeps his
work as apolitical as possible.
Every page is very detailed and
impeccably-referenced. The references themselves are
worthy of note, as they use the rarely-used form of
footnotes, as opposed to endnotes. Such a format
puts the references right on the page with the main
text, so it is far easier for the reader to make use
of them. And, in the Gibbons study, the footnotes
are often huge and detailed.
This work is frequently cited as a principal
reference by many recent Vietnam writers, including
Karnow, Hendrickson, Gardner, and Herring, exceeded
in such references only by Foreigh Relations of the
United States. It is a big, serious study,
appropriate for only the most dedicated student of
the war.
This volume is by far the largest in the series,
amounting to approximately 645,000 words. In
comparison, Stanley Karnow's great general history,
"Vietnam: A History," is considered a large book,
yet it measures 330,000 words. But don't be
intimidated -- the size and detail of Gibbons' work
only adds to its usefulness. |
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| Part V: 1969-1974 |
To come |
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