| The following study examines the career of Walt Whitman Rostow, a leading economic historian and one of the primary architects of U.S. policy during the Vietnam war. The first half looks at Rostow's life and work through 1960, as they pertain to his eventual policy recommendations on Vietnam. The second half focuses on Rostow's role, in his capacity as an advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in the development and implementation of those policies during the period 1961--1966. The study gives special weight to the evolution of Vietnam policy during the first year of the Kennedy administration and Rostow's participation toward the end of that period in drafting the report that would become the de facto blueprint for U.S. prosecution of the war. A subsequent volume will examine Rostow's work in the later phases of the war, his return to academia, and his ongoing study of development and the world economy. |
