These were absurd charges against a principal architect of America’s Cold War strategy, a man whose aversion to Communism went down to his very bones. But in the context of 1949–50, such attacks on the administration left their mark, and the decision to aid France in Vietnam cannot be understood without consideration of the charged domestic political milieu out of which it emerged. Especially with the defeat in China, Acheson and Truman felt compelled to show America’s mettle somewhere, especially in that region, in part to insulate the administration against Republican charges that it was too
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