paid scant attention to military commandersnexcept on technical matters,nand strategic input from the Army wasnminimal.nCounterinsurgency was appealing tonliberal leaders because it contained anlarge element of reformist sentiment.nAlthough Colonel Summers does notnpursue this issue, it is relevant to hisnthesis. When Hubert Humphrey proclaimednhis desire to build a “TVA onnthe Mecong Delta” and so win the heartsnand minds of the peasants, it became apparentnthat something other than conventionalnstrategy was at work. Economistsnspecializing in Third Worldndevelopment often reveal tendencies tonsee these countries as blank pages onnwhich any design, but usually one with anliberal-socialist bent, can be drawn.nCounterinsurgency meant greater civilianninput to policy, more sociologicalnstudies, and the relegating of the militarynto a mere armed-escort role. The samenmind-set can be seen now in El Salvador,,nwhere land reform is considered by somento be more important than the survival ofnthe country itself The counterinsurgencyncampaign executed in Vietnam backfirednin several ways. It restricted Americanntroops to guard duty inside SouthnVietnam where they could only react tonNorth Vietnamese operations. Andnwhen they did react, the destruction wasnin the territory of our ally, rather than ournenemy’s. It assured a strategy of attritionnwhich undermined American homefrontnmorale. It blurred the issue of U.S.ninvolvement so much that defending annally from invasion came to be seen bynsome as helping to suppress a “popular”nuprising. It sapped the legitimacy of thenSaigon government by puttingnAmerican troops into Vietnamese domesticnprograms, which also slowed thenSouth’s development.nSummers would have preferred thatnwe learn from the Korean War. In thatnconflict, American troops dealt almostnexclusively with the external threat fromnChina and North Korea. Though therenwere guerrillas in South Korea, the Seoulnregime was able to cope with themn24inChronicles of Cultarenbehind a shield of U.S. troops whosenoperations against the North isolated thenSouth. Vietnam was another basicallynconventional war, though very fluid.nThe Vietcong aloi-c; could not have topplednthe Saigon regime, and, afternTet-’68, it steadily declined. There nevernwas a popular uprising: “It was fournNorth Vietnamese corps, not ‘dialecticalnmaterialism’ which ultimately conquerednSouth Viemam.” Korea shouldnhave taught us, according to Summers,nthat U.S. forces were capable of defendingnan ally even against Chinese intervention.nHowever, in Viemam, the fearnof Chinese intervention prevented adoptionnof a strategy to defeat Hanoi andnfight, in truth as well as name, the SecondnIndochina War across Laos andnCambodia as well as Vietnam. Wenlearned the wrong lessons from Koreanabout fighting the Chinese, and annequally false notion from Viemam aboutnour ability to win a limited war.nxhe U.S. did not lose on the battlefield.n”One of the most frustratingnaspects of the Vietnam War from the Armyn’ s point of view is that we succeeded inneverything we set out to do,” states Summers.n”Yet, in the end, it was NorthnnnVietnam, not the United States, thatnemerged victorious. How could we havensucceeded so well, yet failed so miserably?”nThe temptation to blame thenpoliticians in Washington or the pressncorps is strong, even though Summersnstates early on: “A stab-in-the-back syndromennever developed after Vietnam.”nHowever, the mass of evidence leads onento this conclusion. Not only was therencivilian dominance in strategy and firmncivilian control of the military (it isnrevealing that despite harsher restrictionsnin Vietnam than Korea on militarynoperations, Vietnam did not produce anMacArthur or any noticeable resignationnin protest by a high-ranking commander),nbut there was also lack of firmnresolve among the civilians for the coursenof action they.adopted. Most telling is anquote from Doris Kearns’s LyndonnJohnson and the American Dream innwhich LBJ says: “History provided too.nmany cases where the sound of the buglenput an end to the hopes and dreams ofnthe best reformers. . . . Once the warnbegan, then all those conservatives innCongress would use it against the GreatnSociety.” In the end, of course, it was thenleft, not the right, which won the battlenof budget priorities between defense andnwelfare. It is not hard to conclude thatnthose who initiated U.S. interventionndid not have their hearts in it and sonwould find any excuse not to press forward.nHere Summers engages in somenwishful thinking. He would like to havengone into Vietnam with solid publicnbacking—including a formal declarationnof war against North Viemam. Such andeclaration would have focused our effortsnagainst the real enemy while makingnit difficult for politicians to put thenwar on the back burner. An arousednpublic would have demanded a speedynvictory. Summers hastens to add that victorynwould not have meant “unconditionalnsurrender,” as in World War II,nbut merely the defeat of communist aggression,nas in Korea.nBut an administration featfiil of confrontationnwith the U.S.S.R. and Chinanand which had domestic policy as its firstn