Book Description

In All the Way with JFK? Peter Busch shatters many a myth about Anglo-American relations and the Vietnam War. Demolishing the scholarly consensus thtat Britain was in constant pursuit of peace in Indochina, he shows that the British government ruled out a negotiated settlement, advised JohnF. Kennedy to conceal the American military build-up, and helped to put the blame for the escalating conflict squarely on the communist regime in Hanoi. Simultaneously, Britain increased its own involvement in the conflict by sending Robert Thompson as the head of a team of counter-insurgencyexperts to South Vietnam. The detailed analysis of the British Advisory Mission disproves the oft-repeated view that Thompson was the brain behind the strategic hamlet programme, in which Kennedy and his administration put so much faith. However, the British experts were convinced of theprogramme's eventual success, and Thompson told Kennedy in 1963 that the South Vietnamese were winning the war.Drawing on newly released documents from archives in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and East Germany, the compelling story of Britain's involvement in Vietnam is set in the context of the Cold War in South-East Asia. While Britain was en route to getting more deeplyinvolved in Vietnam, Indonesia's confrontation policy re-focused London's attention to the Malayan area in 1963. Britain wanted to demonstrate to the world, and particularly to President Kennedy, the Australians, and the New Zealanders, that it was still willing and able to safeguard Commonwealthinterests in South-East Asia. Indeed, Whitehall's unequivocal defence commitment to Malaysia, coupled with the British military build-up in the area, was completely consistent with Britain's Vietnam policy.All the Way with JFK? proves that the British could not think of a viable alternative to Kennedy's Vietnam policy that might have helped the US avoid the quagmire. Far from playing the role of peacemaker, Britain supported Kennnedy's policy of seeking a decisive military victory in Vietnam.