This misperception was facilitated by the self-serving invention of labels to justify our sacrilegious, self-defeating cause. The "Commitment" to the "Vital interest" of "National security" became a positive feedback system which took on a life of its own as those in power came to believe in and become imprisoned by their own rhetoric. As it turned out, all the power committed to Vietnam in the name of "National interest" worked against us. In fact, in terms of American interest, the war was clearly a self-generated blunder, as we had no perceivable interest in the area at any time.

As our leaders came to believe increasingly in their own clichés about American policy toward Vietnam in the late '60's, phoney, invalid optimism was replaced by genuine, invalid optimism. Consequently, during the Johnson years, there was an abundance of unrealistic planning due to overambition, overoptimism and overignorance in the Oval Office. As always, the key to stupidity lay in the discrepancy between what was believed and what was happening, and not only was the official government schema out of sync with Vietnamese reality, but it was systematically programmed to endure unaffected by events in Southeast Asia, which thus remained beyond American comprehension.

As the Vietnam debacle developed during this era, the Johnson administration turned inward, consulting more and more with military priests, who had learned the lesson at Munich (i.e., that appeasement does not deter an aggressor) too well and were determined to apply it where it did not fit. To such people, there was invariably only one solution to any problem—escalation. This escalation became a perfect example of a positive feedback mechanism going to uncontrollable excess, as there was no mechanism within the government which could check policies accepted without reservation by those devoted to the incestuous administration. Fortunately, the war was very much debated by citizens who found the

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