Of course, the media did not have to manufacture dissent and antiwar feeling in the United States; there was enough of the real article to provide th… - Maxwell D. Taylor

Our adversaries have a determination which has existed since at least 1954 to absorb South Vietnam into a Communist state against the will of the vast majority of the people in the South and to rule that state from Hanoi. It is a simple, straightforward objective, no ifs or ands about it. They also have collateral objectives which in the long run may be equally as important to us, such as their desire to demonstrate the invincibility of the "War of Liberation" and in the end to evict the United States from Southeast Asia.

First, we didn't know ourselves. We thought we were going into another Korean war, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies. We never understood them, and that was another surprise. And we knew even less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this dirty kind of business. It's very dangerous.

It is hard to suggest a remedy for this situation, which is one no military man enjoys. One alternative would be to refuse to permit military officers to appear before Congress and leave the defense of military matters to the civilian secretaries. This is the solution followed in Great Britain and many European countries. I doubt that it will ever be accepted in the United States, where the COngress wants to hear the facts from military men who presumably are without political motivation. A second alternative would be to take the position that the advice of the Chiefs of Staff to their civilian superiors is privileged and not to be revealed under Congressional interrogation. Thus far the Executive authority has not seen fit to raise the storm such a stand would create.