Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

The interagency discussion yielded, in late April, a State Department recommendation that the United States not oppose a French return to Indochina but merely seek assurances from Paris that it would grant more self-government and increased local autonomy to the Indochinese people. Though termed a compromise, the recommendation in fact marked a sharp departure from previous U.S. policy. As such, it stands as a pivotal moment in the long history of American involvement in Vietnam. “The recommendation,” historian Ronald Spector has written, “was a long step away from Roosevelt’s unwavering insistence on creating a trusteeship.”48 The differences, to be sure, did not go away. As we shall see, there were still those in Washington who were convinced that the United States was on the wrong side of history in supporting French colonial ambitions in Southeast Asia.