ABSTRACT

Why did the United States make such a massive commitment to a small, backward country over 10,000 miles away? The decision to become involved in Vietnam was later described by a top American official, George Ball, as ‘probably the greatest single error made by America in its history’.1 For over twenty years the United States persisted in its objective of keeping South Vietnam free from communism. The United States did not drift ‘blindly’ into the warevery stage of deepening involvement was taken only after much calculation. Still, the United States lost the war and had to make a humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975.