So it was a lost year; opportunities were lost for possible political negotiation, of re-evaluation of American attitudes, of perhaps convincing the American public that it wasn’t worth it, that the Vietnamese themselves did not care that much about the war. Instead of that, they held the line. They did not think time was working against them and decided not to deal with Vietnam in 1964, but to keep their options open. They would not be entrapped, they would make their decisions carefully and in their own time (they were above all functional, operational, tactical men, not really
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