The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked - Softcover

Gelb, Leslie H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815730713 ISBN 13: 9780815730712

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 1979

Synopsis

Designed to reach a wide audience of scholars and policymakers, the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs 2000 is an annual series that serves as a forum for cutting-edge, accessible research on urban policy. The editors seek to integrate broader research into the urban policy discussion by bringing urban studies scholars together with economists and researchers studying subjects with important urban implications. The six papers in this inaugural volume are divided into two sections. The first three assess the state of urban research and policy. The others address important aspects of the urban economy: education, racial segregation, and federal housing policies.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

When first published in 1979, four years after the end of one of the most
divisive conflicts in the United States, The Irony of Vietnam raised eyebrows. Most critics argued that the country had ?stumbled into a quagmire in Vietnam through hubris and miscalculation,” as the New York Times put it. But Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, who had reviewed recently declassified White House and Defense Department documents, maintained that policymakers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had their eyes open, had based decisions on a thorough knowledge of what was possible on the ground, and knew the cost of action and inaction. Explains Fareed Zakaria in his foreword, those prosecuting the war chose ?middle-of-the-road solutions,” for a variety of what seemed reasonable assumptions. The overall tenor of the era that shaped foreign policy?the belief in the domino theory and a strident anti-communism?restricted policymakers’ thinking and prevented a more flexible approach, however. And thereby lies a lesson for today's policymakers

About the Author:

Leslie H. Gelb is President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former columnist at The New York Times, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism. Gelb has worked as a senior official in the State and Defense departments. Richard K. Betts is a professor of political science at Columbia University. He was a Senior Fellow and Research Associate at the Brookings Institution and has taught at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Professor Betts has also served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as a consultant to the National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency. Professor Betts is a member of the National Commission on Terrorism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0815730713
• ISBN 13: 9780815730712
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 399