Describes the evolution of the command during the period of gradual expansion of the American effort in South Vietnam. From its establishment in 1962 as a small, temporary organization to administer an assistance program, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, grew by late 1967 into a large, permanent headquarters that directed more than half a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in a wide range of combat and pacification operations. The author tells the story of MACV's development as an organization and of the command's role in making and implementing American national policy in Southeast Asia.

Shipping list no.: 2008-0380-P. "PIN:081780-000"--P. [4] of cover.

1. A Deepening Commitment and a New Command: Beginnings of United States Involvement ; Toward the Second Indochina War ; The United States Responds to the New Threat ; Creating the Command -- 2. A Joint Command: Complications and Conflicts, 1962-1963: MACV and the Pacific Chain of Command ; MACV and the MAAG ; Formation of MACV Headquarters ; The Component Commands ; The Debate over Control of Air Power ; A Small But Complicated Command -- 3. From Hope to Frustration: Developing an Allied Strategy ; The Campaign Falls Apart ; MACV and the Coup Against Diem -- 4. Reorganizing and Reviving Pacification: United States Policy: Picking up the Pieces ; Hanoi Prepares for a Larger War ; A New MACV Commander ; Headquarters Reorganization and Expansion ; MACV: Executive Agent for Pacification? ; Struggling for Stability -- 5. The Beginning of Escalation: Widening the War ; OPLAN 34A ; Air and Ground Operations in Laos ; Early Planning for the Air War ; After Tonkin Gulf: Reinforcing the South ; Air War in the North: Planning and Command ; The Marines Land at Da Nang -- 6. Beginnings of the Ground Troop Commitment, January-June 1965 Plans and Proposals, 1954-1964 ; Collapse of the CHIEN THANG Plan ; A Limited Response ; Three Proposals for Sending Troops ; Edging into the Ground War ; Questions of Command and the Concept of Operations ; Where the Question Stood, June 1965 -- 7. The Fateful Decisions, June 1965-February 1966: South Vietnam in Peril ; Air Power Holds Back the Enemy ; Decisions for an American Ground War ; Implementing Phase I ; Decisions at Honolulu -- 8. MACV Headquarters: The Years of Expansion, 1965-1967: Enlarging the Headquarters ; Planning and Control of Operations ; Combined Intelligence ; The Advisory Mission ; Reporting, Research, and Analysis ; How Joint the Command? -- 9. Controlling U.S. Forces: Military Assistance Command, Pacific Command, and the JCS ; Naval Forces, Vietnam ; U.S. Army, Vietnam: A Question of Roles ; The Seventh Air Force: A Multiplicity of Masters ; The Air War in the South: A Single Manager? ; The Field Forces and the III Marine Amphibious Force -- 10. The Allies and Pacification: The Allies ; The South Vietnamese: Cooperation and Coordination ; Pacification.