Quote Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
Do you have a link? I don't doubt you, that just sounds really interesting.

CR
Argument without end

Between 1995 and 1998, Robert S. McNamara led a series of blunt conversations between American and Vietnamese scholars and officials. "The discussions were frank and tough throughout, as befits the first-ever discussion by former enemies of this tragic war," writes McNamara, author of the controversial bestseller In Retrospect and the U.S. secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968. "Had this dialogue occurred in real time, rather than in retrospect, I believe the tragedy could have been prevented."

Erroneous mindsets, mutual ignorance and misunderstandings between Washington and Hanoi drove the escalation of of the Vietnam War, concludes former Secretary of Defense McNamara. Based on six sets of talks held in Hanoi between 1995 and 1998 that brought together U.S. and Vietnamese scholars, policy makers and former military officers. During the talks, McNamara writes, he was amazed to learn that Hanoi saw U.S. peace initiatives as part of a sinister plot to establish a permanent colonial regime in Saigon. Washington, misperceiving North Vietnam as a communist puppet bent on conquering all of Southeast Asia, let a mind-boggling number of opportunities slip by that might have averted war or brought a negotiated settlement. We learn that elements within Hanois top leadership wanted to accept a neutral Saigon coalition government; we are told that key escalation points (e.g., the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin attack) were not ordered by Hanoi to target Americans, as Washington assumed, but were decentralized decisions made for essentially local reasons.