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Book Reviews 133 A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975. By Robert D. Schulzinger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; pp. xiii + 397. $35.00. Robert D. Schulzinger's work is a welcome addition to general histories of America's involvement in the Indochina conflict in the tradition of Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History (rev. 1991) and George C. Herring's America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (3rd ed., 1996). Frequent updates of the history of the Indochina conflict are necessary as more information continues to be made available. The recent opening of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential tapes, and Michael Beschloss's resultant volume—Taking Charge: The fohnson White House Tapes, 1963-64(1997)—illustrate the process's continuity. Moreover, the agonizingly slow release of material from the Richard M. Nixon presidential papers ensures that the final chapter of the Vietnam era is far from complete. Schulzinger successfully meets his stated goal of providing a "compendium of the current state of scholarship of the Vietnam War" (x). But he accomplishes more than simply summarizing the existing state of Vietnam scholarship. Schulzinger adds to an increasingly rich resource with his meticulous use of both primary and secondary source material. Besides culling data from presidential libraries, he employs papers from more than a dozen members of Congress. These papers, he writes, "enriched my understanding of the domestic politics of the Vietnam era" (x). Because congressional documents are so widely scattered, scholars are often unable to invest the time, travel, and finances necessary to explore them. Schulzinger's project is inestimably richer for his wülingness and ability to make the necessary investment . He also uses Canadian and British records, the best-known secondary works on the war, and a number of lesser-known but valuable secondary sources. And he attends carefully and thoroughly to contemporary newspaper and periodical accounts of critical junctures of the war. Schulzinger's determination to exhaust every available resource leads to the discovery of a number of little-known but noteworthy facts. Examples include Representative Edna F. Kelly's (D-NY) attempt in 1951 to block aid to Vietnam (53), Senator Mike Mansfield's (D-MT) careless and uncharacteristic suggestion in 1955 that the United States supply South Vietnam with nuclear weapons (87-88), U.S. Socialist Party Leader Norman Thomas's 1957 letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles complaining about South Vietnam leader Ngo Dinh Diem's tactics (93), and a brief discussion of the domestic impact from conservative commentator Paul Harvey's turn against the war in 1970 (286-87). Schulzinger's thorough primary research makes his book not only an essential text for the lay reader, but also a productive resource for scholars of the Indochina conflict. 134 Rhetoric & Public Affairs Schulzinger, professor of history and director of the International Affairs Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is no revisionist. Readers of A Time for War will not find a radical departure from the conclusions of mainstream historians. They will find instead a well-written and articulately argued treatise. Schulzinger answers his own questions as to whether the war was worthwhile with a resounding "no" (327). Yet he sees both good and bad in America's legacy from Vietnam (336-36). He argues that once the nation committed to supporting a separate South Vietnam, disengagement became unlikely as U.S. leaders became increasingly convinced that American credibility was tied to a successful military outcome. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want to return Indochina to French rule (13-15) but with FDR's death, the Truman administration "took fateful steps toward involvement" (43). When Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Truman and decided to support Diem, few Americans "questioned the principal flaw in the U.S. strategy of nation-buüding: the United States had embarked on the impossible task of creating a separate state and society in the southern part of a single land" (96). Once that commitment was made, presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford all feared the loss of American credibility should the United States withdraw and South Vietnam fall to the Communists. Schulzinger dismisses Oliver Stone's view as...

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