Approaching Vietnam: From World War II Through Dienbienphu, 1941-1954

Gardner concentrates on high-level discussions between U.S., French and British leaders over ""the Indo-china problem,'' an issue that concerned President Franklin Roosevelt even before Pearl Harbor. Quoting liberally from bilateral and trilateral conferences and government memoranda, the study traces the gradual shift from FDR's righteous anticolonial intentions with regard to French hegemony in Southeast Asia to the self-righteous ``nation-building'' policy of the Eisenhower-Dulles erathe latter based on a conviction that ``the American Revolution could be exported, materially and spiritually, to benefit the world.'' The study is best described in the author's own words: it is ``about the way American policymakers perceived Vietnam within the outlines of a global vision.'' The Final Declarations of the 1954 Geneva Conference, plus the official U.S. response, are reprinted in the appendix. Gardner is the author of Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution. (May)