Submarines and aircraft carriers were of little use against irregulars relying on sampans and junks to ferry supplies and fighting men on the Vietnam's river highways.
Col. Edward Lansdale, chief of the CIA's Saigon Military Mission, was the genius cowboy who skirted the rules to achieve just goals; for others, he was the embodiment of an arrogant foreign policy gone dangerously wrong.
China said Tuesday that it "will not stand idly by" and will take countermeasures if the U.S. deploys intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region, which Washington has said it plans to do within months.