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 and supported Conmiunist conspiracy. The test of all U.S. decisions and actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose. 59/

In contrast to this, the statement of "U.S. Objectives in South Vietnam" in NSAM 288 was considerably more extensive and more central to U.S. security interests:

We seek an independent non-Communist South Vietnam. We do not require that it serve as a Western base or as a member of a Western alliance. South Vietnam must be free, however, to accept outside assistance as required to maintain its security. This assistance should be able to take the form not only of economic and social measures but also police and military help to root out and control insurgent elements.

Unless we can achieve this objective in South Vietnam, almost all of Southeast Asia, will probably fall under Communist dominance (all of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), accommodate to Communism so as to remove effective U.S. and anti-Communist influence (Burma), or fall under the domination of forces not now explicitly Communist but likely then to become so (Indonesia taking over Malaysia). Thailand might hold for a period without help, but would be under grave pressure. Even the Philippines would become shaky, and the threat to India on the West, Australia and New Zealand to the South, and Taiwan, Korea, and Japan to the North and East would be greatly increased.

All of these consequences would probably have been true even if the U.S. had not since 1954, and especially since 1961, become so heavily engaged in South Vietnam. However, that fact accentuates the Impact of a Communist South Vietnam not only in Asia but in the rest of the world, where the South Vietnam conflict is regarded as a test case of U.S. capacity to help a nation to meet the Communist "war of liberation."

Thus, purely in terms of foreign policy, the stakes are high… 60/

The argument in the next to last paragraph of NSAM 288 that "all these consequences would probably have been true even if the U.S. had not since 1954, and especially since 1961, become so heavily engaged in SVN" is clearly debatable. But the logic that the increasing U.S. Rh