Subjects:
Vietnam had long since been a place of controversy, and where our government focused
it’s fear of communism for many years. Throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
the government maintained that the war between the Communist north and the south can only be
won by the South Vietnamese, and that our military cannot win it for them. It stressed that the
fall of South Vietnam to communism would threaten the rest of the western world.
Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations, wrote In Retrospect because he wanted to “Put Vietnam in context,”(xx).
McNamara wanted to explain why the mistakes of Vietnam were made, not to justify them, but
to help the American public understand them. He relies not only upon his memories, but upon
People have often called Vietnam, McNamara’s war, because he made it his
responsibility. As he learned more and more about south Vietnam, he became well acquainted
with it’s leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem portrayed himself as a man who shared our western
values. Though as our government would soon realize he was not the man we had
. . .
Vietnam. McNamara in hindsight looks back and wonders, why? Why did they escalate and not
withdraw? South Vietnam seemed like a lost cause. McNamara discusses whether the Gulf of Tonkin resolution
gave too much unlimited power to the president. McNamara reveals that failure to organize properly did in
fact cause many of the oversights made. He proposed a list
of alternatives such as stopping the bombing of the north to bring about negotiations, transferring
the responsibility from our military to the South Vietnamese. Many critics of the Vietnam war feel that it was the
inexperience of the state department, though they were extremely intelligent, they were not
trained in the finer workings of the military which caused the escalation. ” Kennedy was ready to start pulling our troops out because it was obvious that
the war was un winnable. McNamara lists eleven reasons for the major causes
of Vietnam. His
conflicts between the Buddhists and Catholics were becoming more outrageous than ever. It is obvious the mistakes that the
state department made during these fateful years. The
administration supported a general’s coup to get Diem out of power.
Our government overestimated the fall of South Vietnam, would it really have threatened
the rest of the western world, probably not.
Essay's Topics
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