Chapters 9-10 Summary and Analysis

Kennedy sent his own representatives to Vietnam in October 1961 to report on the situation. They included Rostow and Maxwell Taylor. "The resulting Taylor-Rostow report would significantly deepen the American involvement in Vietnam from the low-level (and incompetent) advisory commitment of the Eisenhower years (geared up for a traditional border-crossing war that would never come) to the nearly 20,000 support and advisory troops there at the time President Kennedy was killed. It was one of the crucial turning points in the American involvement, and Kennedy, by his very choice of the two men who had the greatest vested interest in fighting some kind of limited antiguerrilla war, had loaded the dice," (Chapter 9, p. 193).

Rostow supported an aggressive anti-communist policy in Vietnam. He favored strategic bombing and a confrontation with the communist North. Taylor was Kennedy's military analyst. Lansdale was also included...