ABSTRACT
The price for public confidence meant getting rid of Oppenheimer, just as surely as it had led to the separation from the Foreign Service of John Carter Vincent and would, at the end of 1954, lead to the retirement of a constant McCarthy target within the State Department, John Paton Davies. Chester Cooper aptly concluded that “to Ho Chi Minh and his colleagues the Viet Minh victory in 1954 was not only against the French armies but also against the arsenal and treasury of the United States.” Since the economy and streamlining program was already under way by the spring of 1954, any move toward active American participation in Vietnam with ground forces would have fed the arguments of those contending that the New Look ignored the reality that fighting limited wars was bound to be the greatest need.
