Part one. The political context. Vietnam: an episode in the cold war / Robert A. Divine -; A way of thinking: the Kennedy administration's initial assumptions about Vietnam and their consequences / Brian VanDeMork -; From the Colorado to the Mekong / Lloyd C. Gardner
Part two. The military context. The zen of escalation: containment and cominitment in Southeast Asia / John Prados -; Conspiracy of silence: LBJ, the Joint Chiefs, and escalation of the war in Vietnam / Georee C. Herring
Part three. Kennedy and Johnson. -; Lyndon Johnson and the legacy of Vietnam / William Conrad Gibbons -; The Kennedy-Johnson transition: the case for policy reversal / Jolin M. Newman -; NSAM 263 and NSAM 273: manipulating history / Larry Bennan
Part four. The Soviet Dimension. Turnabout? The Soviet policy dilemma in the Vietnamese conflict / Ilya Gaiduk.
