How U.S. went to war

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32633, 15 June 1971, Page 13

How U.S. went to war

(By

NEIL SHEEHAN

of the "New York Times"

through N.Z.P.A.)

NEW YORK, June 14. A massive study of how the United States went to war in Indo-China, conducted by the Pentagon three years ago, demonstrates that four administrations progressively developed a sense of commitment to a non-Communist Vietnam, a readiness to fight the North to protect the South, and an ultimate frustration with this effort to a much greater extent than their public statements acknowledged at the time.

The 3000-page analysis, to which 4000 pages of official documents are appended, was written at the order of the Secretary of Defence, Mr Robert S. McNamara, and covers the American involvement in South-East Asia from World War II to the end of 1968—two months after President Lyndon B. Johnson set a limit on further military commitments and revealed his decision to retire. Though far from a complete history, even at 2.5 million words, the study forms a great archive of Government decision-making on IndoChina over three decades. Its conclusions and specific findings include the following: That the Truman Administration’s decision to give military aid to France in its colonial war against the Communist-led Viet Minh “directly involved” the United States in Vietnam and “set” the course of American policy. That the Eisenhower Administration’s decision to rescue a fledgling South

Vietnam from a Communist take-over and try to undermine the new Communist regime of North Vietnam gave it a “direct role in the ultimate break-down of the Geneva settlement” for Indo-China in 1954. That the Kennedy Administration, though ultimately spared from major intensification decisions by the death of its leader, transformed a policy of “limited-risk gamble," which it inherited, into a "broad commitment” that left President Johnson with a choice between more war and withdrawal. That the Johnson Administration, though its President was reluctant and hesitant to take the final decisions, intensified the covert warfare against North Vietnam and began planning in the spring of 1964 to wage overt war, a full year before it publicly revealed the depth of its involvement and its fear of defeat.