Walter Lippmann, the most influential columnist in the land, had tried some weeks earlier, in early April, to nudge the administration away from doing what in fact it seemed about to do. “We shall not be able to reverse our whole position in Asia and to support a colonial war against national independence,” he wrote. “That would shatter our prestige in the rest of Asia. And even if we were willing to do that, there is no way that this Congress would or could promise enough money and enough military aid to enable the French army to plan a campaign of pacification which would last for many
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