Research Catalog

U.S. containment policy and the conflict in Indochina

Title: U.S. containment policy and the conflict in Indochina / William J. Duiker.
Author: Duiker, William J., 1932-
Publication: Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1994.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	DS550 .D8 1994	Off-site

Details

Description

453 pages : maps; 23 cm

Summary

Tightly argued, balanced, and persuasive, this is a detailed analysis of the relationship between the U.S. doctrine of containment of communism and U.S. foreign policy in Vietnam. It addresses five major issues: why and how did the United States first become involved in the Indochina conflict; what strategy did the United States initially adopt to pursue its objectives there; how did Communist leaders attempt to counter U.S. moves and with what success; what factors led the United States eventually to decide to introduce combat troops into South Vietnam; and what does the U.S. experience in Vietnam have to say about the overall strategy of containment and the more general issue of when and in what conditions the U.S. should intervene in civil disturbances where its security interests are not directly engaged.
Retracing the steps that brought the United States into the Vietnam conflict and evaluating them in terms of conditions at the time and the information then available to policymakers, the book also examines the views of other participants in the conflict - including the government in Hanoi - and how such views related to policy decisions in Washington. It begins by describing the efforts of the Communist-led Vietminh Front to overthrow French rule in Vietnam and the U.S. reaction to those events. It then traces the gradual rise of U.S. involvement during the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, concluding with the introduction of U.S. combat troops in the summer of 1965.
In the course of his analysis, the author addresses a number of still-controversial questions about the Vietnam War: Why and with what justification did the United States reject Ho Chi Minh's overtures at the close of World War II? What factors induced the Truman administration to provide economic and military aid to the French in 1950? Should Eisenhower be given credit for keeping the United States out of the conflict in the late-1950's? What role did Hanoi play in promoting the insurgent movement in South Vietnam in the late 1950's? Should the war in South Vietnam be viewed as a civil war or an invasion? How should Kennedy be judged for the policies his administration adopted in Vietnam? Did Johnson attempt to follow Kennedy's lead in South Vietnam, or did he deliberately depart from his predecessor's policies?
The book concludes with an overview of the U.S. experience in Vietnam and a discussion of whether there were feasible alternatives to the containment strategy that was pursued.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 388-441) and index.

Contents

1. First Encounters -- 2. The Restoration of French Sovereignty -- 3. Years of Indecision -- 4. Indochina Enters the Cold War -- 5. The Road to Geneva -- 6. The End of the Beginning -- 7. Experiment in Nation Building -- 8. Kennedy and Counterinsurgency -- 9. Into the Quagmire -- 10. The Limits of Containment.

ISBN

0804722838
9780804722834

LCCN

93041544

OCLC

ocm29256704
29256704
SCSB-14483584

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library