The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and VietnamHarvard University Press, 2006 M05 30 - 320 pages Was the Vietnam War unavoidable? Historians have long assumed that ideological views and the momentum of events made American intervention inevitable. By examining the role of McGeorge Bundy and the National Security Council, Andrew Preston demonstrates that policymakers escalated the conflict in Vietnam in the face of internal opposition, external pressures, and a continually failing strategy. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Mentor Stimsons Influence on Bundy | 11 |
A Foreign Office in Microcosm Creating the National Security Adviser and Recreating the NSC Staff | 36 |
Learning to Fear the Bomb Kennedys Crises and the Origins of Detente | 54 |
The Hawk Rostow and the First Attempt at Americanization | 75 |
The Soft Hawk Forrestal and Nonmilitary Escalation | 101 |
Bundy the Adviser The Drift to War | 129 |
Bundy the Advocate The Rush to War | 155 |