ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Eisenhower's stance on American military intervention in Southeast Asia in the period before the Johnson administration transformed the United States advisory presence in Vietnam into a military intervention. The January 1961 Eisenhower-Kennedy meeting provides unusually vivid evidence of the ubiquity of misperception and miscommunication in human affairs, sophisticated leaders. The chapter discusses the meeting in question and the reasons for its blind-men-and-the-elephant character. It focuses on the larger implications of the episode, particularly those that bear on the question of whether the convictions of American decision makers in the period before the United States became a party to the war in Vietnam made American intervention inevitable. Dillon's interpretation deserves particular attention not only because he was present at the meeting in question but also because he had first hand acquaintance with both Eisenhower and Kennedy. Eisenhower was not unique in his capacity to support or oppose American military intervention in Indochina depending on the circumstances.
