The importance of the information program can thus scarcely be exaggerated. It was the centerpiece of the administration’s Vietnam policy that summer. (Remarkably, it has received almost no attention from students of the war.) Its outcome would determine when and how to launch the wider military action that top officials now saw as nearly inevitable to prevent a collapse in South Vietnam (recall that the conferees in Honolulu in early June opted to delay such action in large part because of concern about how these crucial audiences would react).
