406 notes to pages 230‒234
the bombing campaign is no diff erent. Th us some revisionists have argued
that the United States would have done better to wage a shorter, more
intensive bombing campaign because it would have drawn less criticism.
See Robbins, Th is Time We Win , 36. Such counterfactual speculation,
though, requires that one accept a chain of implausible assumptions
about how the government and people of the DRV would have respond-
ed, what China and the Soviet Union might have done, and how both
world and domestic opinion would have refl ected this.- Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War , 16.
- Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War , 13–14.
- Schandler, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam , 65–66.
- Sorley, Better War , 4–5, 20–21.
- Th e relationship is discussed at length in Sorley, Better War.
- Sorley, Better War , 61–62,
- Schandler, America in Vietnam , 96–97.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 116–17.
- Westmoreland told Johnson at a meeting at Honolulu in March 1967
that the Vietcong could continue the war indefi nitely. Langguth, Our
Vietnam , 441. A number of plans were proposed to isolate the communist
forces in South Vietnam by cutting off supply routes through Laos. Th ese
were rejected, as I note, for political reasons. See Summers, On Strategy ,
119. - Th e CIA reported in early 1967 that Hanoi remained confi dent that
American resolve would weaken fi rst. Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War ,
27–28. Th e problem extends beyond Vietnam. See Andrew Mack, “Why
Big Nations Lose Small Wars: Th e Politics of Asymmetric Confl ict,”
World Politics 27 (January 1975): 175–200. - Also at issue was where to stop: the communists could extend their sup-
ply lines westward into Th ailand, increasing the risk of subversion there.
Unlike Korea, then, no conventional defense line could be established
across Southeast Asia that would make possible a quarantine of South
Vietnam within the force limits set by the administration. (However, for
a diff erent view, see Summers, On Strategy .) In 1967, McNamara fl oated
a proposal to create a barrier of electronic sensors across the 17th parallel
westward through Laos to check infi ltration, part of a scheme to stabilize
the American troop commitment. Th e idea proved both impractical and
very expensive, and it was eventually rejected. - Th us General Wheeler predicted in July 1965 that Hanoi, fearing an
attack on the DRV, would not be willing to send more than one-quarter
of its army into South Vietnam. Langguth, Our Vietnam , 378. - Schandler, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam , 57–58; Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s
Wa r , 94–95. - Th e president complained that his military commanders lacked imagina-
tion. Berman, Lyndon Johnson’s War , 78.