ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the evolution of John F. Kennedy-Lyndon Johnson crusading excesses, the Nixon administration's realist adjustments, and unsuccessful efforts of the Gerald Ford and John Carter Vincent administrations to manage tensions between the two priorities. It emphasis the Kennedy-Johnson administration's difficulties in reconciling its fast-thinking, campaign-driven rhetoric, and inaugural promise to "pay any price" in pursuit of liberty, with an underlying intellectual stress on stabilizing the balance of power. Over his term, Kennedy sought to reconcile these tensions with varied degrees of success. The chapter argues that United States (US) policy shifted under Nixon toward a realist alternative, as his administration sought to extricate the US from Vietnam and rebalance a trilateral relationship with the Soviet Union and China. Nevertheless, even if self-inflicted wounds prevented Nixon from reaping the full political benefit of extricating the US from Vietnam, his efforts at "triangular diplomacy" were conducted in a more straightforward fashion, enjoying broad, if also brief, public approval.
