yr13_ia_2007_durrant_c

=Evaluation of Sources (250-400 words)=

//“U.S. involvement during this period [February – June 1964] was a program of covert GVN operations, designed to impose "progressively escalating pressure" upon the North, and initiated on a small and essentially ineffective scale in February… The demands came--mostly from U.S. officials in Saigon and Washington and mostly because of the felt need to do something about a deteriorating situation in SVN--to increase the intensity of the covert operations and to change from covert to overt action.”//

//United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967//; Volume 3; p. 106

This source is valuable because of its unique origin – as an exhaustive report commissioned by the Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, into the internal planning and policy-making regarding the Vietnam War, it gives a complete analysis of the aims of the American Government regarding Vietnam, from researchers with access to top-secret information. Its purpose also makes it extremely useful to historians; as a study commissioned by McNamara, for internal circulation only, it was written to inform in great detail on sensitive issues, with no bias. There was no need to mislead or withhold information, as would be necessary for a publicly released study. The time of writing is important too – commissioned in 1967, it benefits from writers having primary knowledge of the background to the War, with the benefit of hindsight as well.