In Admiral Harry Felt's reinforced concrete command post high above Pearl Harbor, top U.S. officials last week gathered for the first exhaustive policy study of South Viet Nam since the coup that toppled the Diem regime.
For the nine-hour conference Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor had flown in from Washington; from Saigon came Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and General Paul Harkins. The Honolulu meeting exuded almost relentless optimism about the war, and the policymakers clung bravely to the line that things should be sufficiently in hand by 1965 to...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
