De Gaulle and U.S. Vietnam Policy

Paper Summary:

The paper argues that had Washington listened to Charles de Gaulle's advice, the tragic American war in Vietnam could have been avoided. The paper discusses how chances for peace in Vietnam were present at several times during the nearly 15 years of American military involvement in the nation. The paper then shows how nearly all these opportunities were missed by US administrations, which saw only continued military escalation as the route for sustained peace. The paper asserts that had the US taken the admonitions of President de Gaulle into real consideration, American prestige and credibility would have suffered far less than it did in the end. The paper uses footnotes in place of a bibliography.

From the Paper:

"Winston Churchill once famously noted that of all the crosses he had to bear during World War II, the Cross of Lorraine was the heaviest, meaning his relationship with France's General Charles de Gaulle was the hardest and most contentious of all. Over the next 30 years following the war, four US presidential administrations would also come to similar conclusions regarding de Gaulle, seeing him as arrogant, intractable and seemingly unwilling to cooperate on any initiative which did not place France as the first among equals in the world."

Sample of Sources Used:

• George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York: Norton, 1982) p.378
• James Bill, George Ball: Behind the Scenes in US Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) p.159
• Melanie Billings-Yun, Decision Against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) p.49
• Guy Carmoy, "The Last Year of De Gaulle's Foreign Policy" International Affairs , vol.45, no.3, July 1969; pp.426-427
• Frank Costigliola, "Kennedy, the European Allies and the Failure to Consult" Political Science Quarterly, vol. 110, no.1(Spring 1995) p.109

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