e Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U. S. Involvement By NEIL SHEEHAN A massive study of how the United States went to war in Indochina, con- ducted by the Pentagon three years ago, demonstrates that four administrations progressively developed a sense of com- mitment to a non-Communist Vietnam , a readiness to fight the North to pro- tect the South, and an ultimate frustra- tion with this effort to a much greater extent than their public statements ac- knowledged at the time. The 3,000-page analysis, to which 4,000 pages of official documents are appended, was commissioned by Secre- tary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and covers the American involvement In Southeast Asia from World War II to mid-1968-the start of the peace talks in Paris after President Lyndon B. John- son had set a limit on further military commitments and revealed his intention to retire. Most of the study and many of the appended documents have been obtained by The New York Times and will be described and presented in a series of articles beginning today. Three pages of documentary material from the Pentagon study begin on Page 35. Though far from a complete history. even at 2.5 million words, the study forms a great archive of government decision-making on Indochina over three decades. The study led its 30 to 40 au- thors and researchers to many broad conclusions and specific findings, in- cluding the following: That the Truman Administration's de- cision to give military aid to France in her colonial war against the Communist- led Vietminh "directly involved" the United States in Vietnam and "set" the course of American policy. That the Eisenhower Administra- tion's decision to rescue a fledgling South Vietnam from a Communist take- over and attempt to undermine the new Communist regime of North Vietnam gave the Administration a "direct role in the ultimate breakdown of the Geneva settlement" for Indochina in 1954. That the Kennedy Administration, though ultimately spared from major escalation decisions by the death of its leader, transformed a policy of "lim- ited-risk gamble," which it inherited. into a "broad commitment" that left President Johnson with a choice between more war and withdrawal. That the Johnson Administration, though the President was reluctant and hesitant to take the final decisions, In-F tensified the covert warfare against North Vietnam and began planning in the spring of 1964 to wage overt war, a full year before it publicly revealed the depth of its involvement and its fear of defeat. That this campaign of growing clan- destine military pressure through 1964 and the expanding program of bombing North Vietnam in 1965 were begun de- spite the judgment of the Government's ures would not cause Hanoi to cease its intelligence community that the meas- support of the Vietcong insurgency In the South, and that the bombing was Continued on Page 38, Col. 1

pouvez vous me trouver le cœur du problème qui il y a eu dans cette guerre
( la guerre du Vietnam)​