ABSTRACT
The bombing of North Vietnam was probably more tightly controlled from a civilian center than any other military operation in history. The United States (US) military took the brunt of US policies in Vietnam, suffered the casualties, and made the sacrifices not only in men and resources but also in prestige. The US had long prided itself on civilian virtues and the supremacy of the civilian over the military, going so far in fact as to have maintained only a minuscule military establishment, by world standards at least, before World War II. The premium placed on action by US policy-makers during their Vietnam engagement is of great importance in understanding the US predicament. From the mid-fifties on, Bernard Fall's important work on Indochina began to appear with regularity; and by the late fifties a handful of officials with Vietnamese language competence had been trained and were working in the field.
