Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

Book Overview

In one of the most detailed and powerfully argued books published on American intervention in Vietnam, Fredrik Logevall examines the last great unanswered question on the war: Could the tragedy have been averted? His answer: a resounding yes. Challenging the prevailing myth that the outbreak of large-scale fighting in 1965 was essentially unavoidable, Choosing War argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary, not merely in hindsight but in the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520229193
• ISBN13: 9780520229198
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 557 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Very Excellent Work

In Choosing War, Mr. Logevall presents a very cogent and deeply reasoned assessment of America's entry into the futile and eventually tragic landscape of an Americanized war in Vietnam. There are so many commonly held beliefs about the necessity of America's involvement there was to prevent the spread of Communism, that it is refreshing, but painful, to read about how and why America went so wrong - and how many chances we had to change direction. It is most infuriating to see the steady drumbeat of the military generals and like-minded advisors twisting and subverting the information coming out of Vietnam that was shifted to show that American military might was making a positive and meaningful difference in pursuit of our goals for a non-communist South, knowing full well this was not the case. As in JFK and Vietnam [by John Newman], it paints a frightening picture of how at the mercy of others are the president's choices. A most interesting and prescient comment occurs in the final chapter and paragraph of the book that equates lessons unlearned from Vietnam allowing similar mindsets to erupt, engaging America in a similarly foolish military incursion in a foreign country whose population and conditions we also don't understand. A very well written, well researched and easily readable book.

Scathing & Illuminating Examination Of Why Vietnam....

This fascinating, extremely readable, and carefully researched book by historian Frederik Logevall has an intriguing thesis closely paralleling that of several other emerging scholars regarding the origins and prosecution of the Vietnam War. Like David Kaiser's provocative indictment in "American Tragedy; Kennedy, Johnson, & The Origins Of The Vietnam War" of both the military and civilian advisors to Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, the author presents a damning and quite convincing stream of evidence proving that it was in fact a series of individuals like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense Dean Rusk, and General William Westmoreland who arrogantly chose to pursue a war that many around them actively questioned and discouraged. The author's careful research shows a flood of documentary evidence indicating that these people and a number of like-minded others, deliberately chose to prosecute a war for which they had good reason to believe would not likely succeed. Unlike Kaiser in his excellent book, Professor Logevall chooses to concentrate impressively on a critical eighteen-month period spanning from the summer of 1963 to the early winter of 1965, and the fateful steps taken during that period toward a policy of escalation and direct involvement of American combat units. The author contends that any one of a number of important opportunities to step aside were deliberately ignored, often based on important information provided by key insiders such as McNamara. As the record also shows, this information was anything but the disinterested and objective assessment of the political, economic, and military situation on the ground in South Vietnam it was presented as. In this sense both President Kennedy and President Johnson were victims of a quite deliberate campaign of misinformation and self-serving worst-case analysis by Rusk, McNamara, and Westmoreland. It was in such a poisonous and duplicitous environment that Lyndon Johnson made a fateful series of decisions to escalate the war by "Americanizing" it, something Kennedy before him had quite insistently denied permission to do. The author also argues quite persuasively that both Kennedy and Johnson had stepped away from opportunities for disengaging from the involvement in Vietnam for domestic political reasons, including a concern with being seen as "soft" on communism in the period preceding the coming national elections of 1964. This is substantiated by Johnson's actions after Kennedy's assassination; while secretly initiating actions to escalate the war, Johnson self-consciously campaigned saying exactly the opposite. He understood the potential firestorm American involvement could have for both liberal and conservative criticism, and was therefore careful to mitigate his vulnerability by neutralizing it as a political factor until after the Presidential elections of 1964. Likewise, once committed to a policy of massive American participation in the wa

lucid, persuasive account

In this masterful study of how the United States committed hundreds of thousands of ground troops to the war in Vietnam, Fredrik Logevall persuasively argues that the war was a choice, not an inevitable outcome of the Cold War. Based on exhaustive research, Logevall conclusively demonstrates that President Johnson had a variety of viable options and that the escalation of the war was not the only possible or feasible course of action. Even at the time, Johnson and his advisers knew that they had a variety of options, yet as Logevall shows, they chose to escalate the war, with terrible consequences. This book is a powerful study of miscalculation and cowardice and a reminder of just how misguided the American war in Vietnam was. A must read.

Extraordinary research and compelling arguement

CHOOSING WAR makes an important contribution to the literature on the Vietnam War. With cogent analysis, detailed research, and stunning clarity, Logevall has crafted a book that should become the standard account of the "Long 1964." Not only does he illuminate the heretofore understudied international angle of this period, he makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the role of domestic politics in the making of U.S. foreign policy.The only reservation I have with the book is a small problem with the thesis. Logevall makes a persuasive argument that Lyndon Johnson (and members of his administration, but mainly LBJ) consciously chose war over other options in Vietnam in an attempt to preserve his personal credibility and domestic agenda. Yet at the end of the book, Logevall backs off this indictment, arguing that Vietnam was, in the end, America's war, with enough responsibility to go around. This is a minor point, but one that Logevall or his editor should have recognized and addressed before publication.