The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked

Leslie H. Gelb; Richard K. Betts

doi:10.5771/9780815726791

Summary

"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.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2016
Copyright Year: 2016
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-2678-4
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-2679-1
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 1
Product Type: Monograph

1. Table of Contents No access
2. Foreword No access
3. Preface to the Classic Edition No access
4. Abbreviations No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 6
1. Patterns, Dilemmas, and Explanations No access
2. Recurrent Patterns and Dilemmas from Roosevelt to Eisenhower No access
3. Picking Up the Torch: The Kennedy Administration No access
4. Intervention in Force: The Johnson Administration, I No access
5. Coming Home to Roost: The Johnson Administration, II No access
1. National Security Goals and Stakes No access
2. Domestic Political Stakes No access
3. The Bureaucracy and the Inner Circle No access
1. Constraints No access
2. Pressures and the President No access
3. Part Four: Perceptions: Realism, Hope, and Compromise No access
4. Optimism, Pessimism, and Credibility No access
5. The Strategy of Perseverance No access
1. The Lessons of Vietnam No access
Documentary Appendix No access Pages 349 - 354
Bibliographical Note No access Pages 355 - 356
Notes No access Pages 357 - 398
Index No access Pages 399 - 1