Author: Office of the Secretary of Defense
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 712
Get Book Here
Book Description
McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam, 1965-1969, volume VI in the newly named Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, covers the incumbency of Robert S. McNamara, as well as the brief, but significant, tenure of Clark M. Clifford. McNamara's key role in the ever-deepening U.S. involvement in Vietnam between 1965 and 1968 forms the centerpiece of the narrative. During these years, Vietnam touched every aspect of Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, determining budget priorities, provoking domestic unrest, souring relations with NATO, and complicating negotiations with the Soviet Union.McNamara's early miscalculations about Vietnam became the source of deep disappointments. Relations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never good, frayed almost to the breaking point as McNamara repeatedly rejected military advice in favor of his civilian experts. McNamara's carefully crafted plans failed, his frustrations grew, and he became estranged from the President. His private attempts to check the war's momentum contradicted his public statements supporting the military effort and tarred McNamara as a hypocrite. McNamara's successor, Clark Clifford, arrived with a reputation as a hawk, but focused most of his effort on extricating the United States from Vietnam.McNamara and Clifford presided over the Department of Defense during momentous and dangerous times. Vietnam was one of a series of wars, emergencies, and interventions involving U.S. interests. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, declining U.S. prestige and power in Europe and NATO, war in the Middle East, heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, arms control talks with the Soviet Union, and violent protests at home competed for attention. Overseeing the Vietnam War and contending with these complex policy issues taxed even McNamara's enormous energy and brilliant intellect as he struggled to manage DoD programs. His long-cherished cost-cutting programs fell by the wayside; his favored weapons systems were swept aside; his committed efforts to limit strategic arms faltered; and his reputation was permanently tarnished.McNamara, Clifford and the Burdens of Vietnam highlights the interaction of McNamara and Clifford with the White House, Congress, the JCS, the State Department, and other federal agencies involved in policy formulation. The two secretaries attempted to impose order while fighting a war whose cost of winning became as morally prohibitive as the price of losing.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 742
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Alfred Goldberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 752
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Alfred Goldberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 752
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: George C. Herring
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813938511
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 39
Get Book Here
Book Description
In the summer of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson faced an agonizing decision. On June 7, General William Westmoreland had come to him with a "bombshell" request to more than double the number of existing troops in Vietnam. LBJ, who wished to be remembered as a great reformer, not as a war president, saw the proposed escalation for what it was—the turning point for American involvement in Vietnam. This is one of the most discussed chapters in modern presidential history, but George Herring, the acknowledged dean of Vietnam War historians, has found a fascinating new way to tell this story—through the remarkable legacy of LBJ’s taped telephone conversations. Underused until now in exploring Johnson’s decision making in Vietnam, the phone conversations offer intimate, striking, and sometimes poignant insights into this ordeal. Johnson emerges as a fascinating character, obligated to pursue victory in Vietnam but skeptical that it is even possible, the whole while watching his plans for domestic reform threatened. The president walks a fine line between a military he must placate and a Congress whose support he must maintain as he tries to implement his Great Society legislation. The reader can see the flaws in the Cold War sensibility contributing to Johnson’s tragic attempt to hold ground against an enemy with whom he had no leverage. The cast includes many of the era’s most iconic players, such as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, General Westmoreland ("I have a lot riding on you," LBJ tells him—"I hope you don’t pull a MacArthur on me!"), House minority leader Gerald Ford, anti-war advocate Robert Kennedy ("I think you’ve got to sit down and talk to Bobby," LBJ tells McNamara), and former president Eisenhower, a valuable contact in the Republican camp. A concise, inside look at seven critical weeks in 1965—presented as a Rotunda ebook linking to transcripts and audio files of the original presidential tapes— The War Bells Have Rung offers both student and scholar a vivid and accessible look at a decision on which LBJ’s presidency would pivot and that would change modern American history. Miller Center Studies on the Presidency is a new series of original works that draw on the Miller Center's scholarly programs to shed light on the American presidency past and present.
Author: Walter S. Poole
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cold War
Languages : en
Pages : 494
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: William Mannen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793607109
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Get Book Here
Book Description
In the second half of the twentieth century, strategic and economic conditions compelled the U.S. government to start running budget deficits on a permanent basis. A new role of global leadership in containing communism required a robust military establishment. The federal government overwhelmingly relied for general revenue on an income tax code that also could not impede economic growth. And general revenue increasingly funded transfer payments in an expanding entitlement state. Fiscal overstretch resulted in unending deficits that continue to this day. At first the shift to deficit normality was not obvious. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations attempted to hold the line on deficits, but this commitment gradually waned in subsequent years. Arms, Revenue, and Entitlements: U.S. Deficits in the Cold War, 1945–1991 looks at the Cold War era from a budgetary perspective and how defense spending, income tax reductions, and entitlement programs all contributed to the emergence of the deficit normative state. As national debt continues to climb in the twenty-first century, Arms, Revenue, and Entitlements shows how the U.S. reached this point and how a comprehensive policy approach might again restore fiscal stability.
Author: Jonathan M. House
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806167785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465
Get Book Here
Book Description
Study of the Cold War all too often shows us the war that wasn’t fought. The reality, of course, is that many “hot” conflicts did occur, some with the great powers' weapons and approval, others without. It is this reality, and this period of quasi-war and semiconflict, that Jonathan M. House plumbs in A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991, a complex case study in the Clausewitzian relationship between policy and military force during a time of global upheaval and political realignment. This volume opens a new perspective on three fraught decades of Cold War history, revealing how the realities of time, distance, resources, and military culture often constrained and diverted the inclinations or policies of world leaders. In addition to the Vietnam War and nuclear confrontations between the USSR and the United States, this period saw dozens of regional wars and insurgencies fought throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Cuba, Pakistan, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, and South Africa pursued their own goals in ways that drew the superpowers into regional disputes. Even clashes ostensibly unrelated to the politics of East-West confrontation, such as the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, involved armed forces, weapons, and tactics developed for the larger conflict and thus come under House’s scrutiny. His study also takes up nontraditional or specialized aspects of the period, including weapons of mass destruction, civil-military relations, civil defense, and control of domestic disorders. The result is a single, integrated survey and analysis of a complex period in geopolitical history, which fills a significant gap in our knowledge of the organization, logistics, operations, and tactics involved in conflict throughout the Cold War.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military history
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Sharon K. Weiner
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231556934
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136
Get Book Here
Book Description
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)—a senior group of officers who lead the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps—is perhaps the most influential military figure in the United States. The chairman is the primary military advisor to the president and is often the public face of the armed forces. As advocates for the military’s priorities, some chairmen have used this role to help shape policy, but others have embraced the position as an opportunity to chart new policy directions or challenge presidential preferences. Managing the Military is a pioneering analysis of the power of the chairman of the JCS that sheds new light on civil-military relations in the United States. Using detailed case studies of debates over defense budgets since the end of the Cold War, Sharon K. Weiner examines when and how the JCS chairman opposes civilian defense policy preferences. She shows that, under the right conditions, the chairman can be a policy entrepreneur, challenging the goals of the White House and lobbying for the military’s interests. However, the extent of the chairman’s political clout is constrained by the preferences of the service chiefs who head the branches of the military. Weiner also explores the evolution of the institution of the JCS and illuminates the chairman’s interaction with the president and secretary of defense. Blending empirical detail and theoretical contributions, Managing the Military offers a compelling account of the circumstances under which the power of the JCS chairman is maximized.
