Volume 6, Number 11 · June 23, 1966
Room at the Top
By Hans J. Morgenthau
Triumph or Tragedy: Reflections on Vietnam
by Richard Goodwin
Random House, 143 pp., $1.45 (paper)
Stripped of all pretenses, double-talk, and outright lies, two simple and stark choices face the United States in Vietnam. One derives from the assumption that in Vietnam the credibility of the United States and its prestige as a great power are irrevocably engaged, that the war in Vietnam is a test case for all 'wars of national liberation,' and that in consequence the fate of Asia and perhaps even of the non-Communist world at large might well be decided in Vietnam. It follows from this assumption that the United States can only tolerate one outcome of the war: victory, and never mind that victory is bound to mean the physical destruction of Vietnam, South and North. The inevitable means to the end of victory is the escalation of the war. In the North, escalation means the unrestricted bombing of industrial and population centers; in the South, it means the commitment of what according to authoritative estimates will amount to a million American troops. Such an allout effort at victory carries within itself the risk of a military confrontation with China or the Soviet Union or both. Yet these risks are justified by the magnitude of the stakes.
Review, 2597 words
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