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To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (12063)	8/21/1998 11:38:00 PM
From: Gauguin	Respond to of 71178

I don't doubt the military was concerned. I don't think they were seriously consulted; and it wasn't their war. MacNamara is (still) an asshole, who will burn, I hope. The Congress. What crap. Using the military for political purposes. Maybe because you don't want to have ideological confrontations. Laziness, really. I lost all of my respect for government. Which is a good thing. Suspicion is a good thing. You can be suspicious, and keep your honor, both. And if this isn't the Gulf of Tonkin, the way things are set up now, someone will get us into one, just like this, without a clue.

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (12063)	8/23/1998 8:46:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<<The professional military advised Lyndon Johnson not to commit ground combat troops>> Another Asian history tangent... During WWII the US had an amazing group of intelligence officers working in Asia. Most were children of missionaries, had grown up in the countries in question, and spoke native languages. After the war, they unanimously advised the State Dept. that Chiang Kai-Shek was hopelessly incompetent and could not endure with any amount of propping up, that Mao and the Russians would fall out within 5 years, and that a deal could be made with Mao. This advice was regarded as ideologically unacceptable, and they were purged from the service. What Johnson's Asian advisers knew about Asia could have been carved on their thumbnails, but they were ideologically pure. There's a fascinating book called "Why Viet Nam", written by Archimedes Patti, who was the OSS officer who commanded the first American mission in Hanoi after WWII. He's an intelligence officer, not a writer, and the prose is slow going, but the detail is exceptional, the accuracy beyond question. Should be required reading for any American concerned with Vietnam. Steve