The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships, Part I: 1945-1960

Princeton, NJ: Acropolis Books, 1986. First Paperbk Printing. Wraps. very good. 363 pages. , Vol. 1 only, wraps, map, footnotes, index, two ink initials on front endpaper, slight wear and soiling to covers. Volume 1 of a five-volume study prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. Senate on the formulation of Vietnam policy during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. This first volume begins with President Truman's decision at the end of World War II to accept French reoccupation of Indochina rather than to seek the international trusteeship favored earlier by President Roosevelt, and ends with the declining fortunes of the South Vietnamese Government and growing doubts about the U.S. program as the 1950's came to an end. This searching analysis of what has been called America's longest war" was commissioned by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to achieve an improved understanding of American participation in the conflict. Part I begins with Truman's decision at the end of World War II to accept French reoccupation of Indochina, rather than to seek the international trusteeship favored earlier by Roosevelt. It then discusses U.S. support of the French role and U.S. determination to curtail Communist expansion in Asia.