Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

If the Saigon situation failed to improve, he declared, looking at JCS chairman Wheeler, “then I'll be talking to you, General.” Johnson further noted that American dependents should be removed from Saigon; though the meeting notes do not clearly indicate why, the context suggests that it was because he feared for their safety in a wider war. And in ordering Rusk to get military support from allies for the wider action, he tellingly said, “If [the government?] fails, we want them in with us,” and not merely with a “chaplain and nurse.”32 It would be hard to overestimate the importance of this presidential decision. Johnson opted to fundamentally alter the American involvement in Vietnam. Like his ambassador in Saigon, he was unhappy about the prospect of moving against the North without a stronger South Vietnamese government, but like him, he was prepared to do so if necessary. The decision contained deep contradictions. Washington policymakers had for a long time conceded among themselves that the keys to victory in the war lay in the South, but now they were seeking a solution through striking the North, despite general skepticism in the intelligence community that such a policy would yield results. They