(OFF) Vietnam

[Eric Siegerman]

On Sun, Jul 06, 2003 at 07:54:05PM -0400, AerospaceAge Warrior wrote:
> The theory was that if one Asian country fell there would be a domino
> effect with other countries as well.  This was a policy mostly framed by
> Dulles.  He and his wonks felt that they would loose the whole of Asia to
> communism if one country fell.

Just to note that "domino theory" was the buzzword much used at
the time.  A quick Google search turned this up, from the horse's
master's mouth :-)  It's from a press conference given by
President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Apr. 7, 1954:

    Q. Robert Richards, Copley Press:

    Mr. President, would you mind commenting on the strategic
    importance of Indochina to the free world? I think there has
    been, across the country, some lack of understanding on just
    what it means to us.

    The President.

    You have, of course, both the specific and the general when
    you talk about such things.

    First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in
    its production of materials that the world needs.

    Then you have the possibility that many human beings pass
    under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world.

    Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow
    what you would call the "falling \cf2 domino\cf0 " principle.
    You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first
    one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty
    that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a
    beginning of a disintegration that would have the most
    profound influences.

    Now, with respect to the first one, two of the items from
    this particular area that the world uses are tin and
    tungsten. They are very important. There are others, of
    course, the rubber plantations and so on.

    Then with respect to more people passing under this
    domination, Asia, after all, has already lost some 450
    million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship, and we
    simply can't afford greater losses.

    But when we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss
    of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and
    Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that
    not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer
    through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you
    are talking really about millions and millions and millions
    of people.

    Finally, the geographical position achieved thereby does many
    things. It turns the so-called island defensive chain of
    Japan, Formosa, of the Philippines and to the southward; it
    moves in to threaten Australia and New Zealand.

    It takes away, in its economic aspects, that region that
    Japan must have as a trading area or Japan, in turn, will
    have only one place in the world to go -- that is, toward the
    Communist areas in order to live.

    So, the possible consequences of the loss are just
    incalculable to the free world.

From: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/domino.html

There are some other interesting, still-topical things in there
too, if you're willing to wade through stuff that stopped being
relevent not very long after it was said :-)  Like this prescient
gem (still talking about a possible future "all-out effort" in
Indochina):
    ... for many years, in talking to different countries,
    different governments, I have tried to insist on this
    principle: no outside country can come in and be really
    helpful unless it is doing something that the local people
    want.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
When I came back around from the dark side, there in front of me would
be the landing area where the crew was, and the Earth, all in the view
of my window. I couldn't help but think that there in front of me was
all of humanity, except me.
        - Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot