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No. 15073
ID: 1e7cc7
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"All in all a fine piece of protective gear, much better engineered than MacNamara's exit strategy."
Have to disagree with the author, there. Robert McNamara recommended withdrawing US troops from Vietnam as it became obvious that the South Vietnamese population was antagonistic with their corrupt and unpopular government and the North Vietnamese were determined to win, no matter how long it took, and they were increasingly funded by the Soviets and Chinese, and that the conflict could turn into a long quagmire for the USA.
On October 2, 1963, Kennedy received the report of a mission to Saigon by McNamara and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The main recommendations, which appear in Section I(B) of the McNamara-Taylor report, were that a phased withdrawal be completed by the end of 1965 and that the “Defense Department should announce in the very near future presently prepared plans to withdraw 1,000 out of 17,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Vietnam by the end of 1963.” http://www.bostonreview.net/us/galbraith-exit-strategy-vietnam
When Defense Secretary Robert McNamara continued this sentiment to President Johnson, he was rebuffed. In an early November 1967 memorandum to Johnson, McNamara's recommendation to freeze troop levels, stop bombing North Vietnam and for the U.S. to hand over ground fighting to South Vietnam was rejected outright by the President. McNamara's recommendations amounted to his saying that the strategy of the United States in Vietnam which had been pursued to date had failed. McNamara left office on February 29, 1968. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara
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