Book description
Using recently released archival materials from the United States and
Europe, Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in
Vietnam explains how and why the United States came to assume control
as the dominant western power in Vietnam during the 1950s. Acting on
their conviction that American methods had a better chance of building
a stable, noncommunist South Vietnamese nation, Eisenhower
administration officials systematically ejected French military,
economic, political, bureaucratic, and cultural institutions from
Vietnam. Kathryn C. Statler examines diplomatic maneuvers in Paris,
Washington, London, and Saigon to detail how Western alliance members
sought to transform South Vietnam into a modern, westernized, and
democratic ally but ultimately failed to counter the Communist threat.
Abetted by South Vietnamese prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem, Americans in
Washington, D. C., and Saigon undermined their French counterparts at
every turn, resulting in the disappearance of a French presence by the
time Kennedy assumed office. Although the United States ultimately
replaced France in South Vietnam, efforts to build South Vietnam into
a nation failed. Instead, it became a dependent client state that was
unable to withstand increasing Communist aggression from the North.
Replacing France is a fundamental reassessment of the origins of U. S.
involvement in Vietnam that explains how Franco-American conflict led
the United States to pursue a unilateral and ultimately imperialist
policy in Vietnam.
""Statler's book does provide us with a fascinating,
detailed and much needed account of the transition of power from
France to the United States in South Vietnam while Ho Chi Minh's
Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled the North." --Peter
Neville, Diplomacy and Statecraft" --
Kathryn C. Statler is associate professor of history at the
University of San Diego and coeditor of The Eisenhower Administration,
the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War.
