The president assured his guests he had done his best with congressional leaders, but there was no telling if it was enough, and that’s why he had devoted so much of the Seattle speech to the subject. Congress had to be convinced, he said, to support an “all-out” effort in Vietnam for a year or eighteen months. Without such congressional backing, American aid would end.29 By “all-out” effort, did Eisenhower mean potentially using U.S. ground forces? It’s hard to be sure. He knew that lawmakers would be in no mood to send soldiers back to Asia immediately on the heels of the long and
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