O'Sullivan, John

In the years 1965 to 1968 of the Viet Nam War, high level U.S. military officials ordered arbitrary reductions of official estimates of the enemy order of battle. The motivation for their policy reflected the difficulties posed by this war. As divisiveness in the U.S. increased over support for the war, signs of progress in the war were in demand, but impressive military progress was not being made, although ARVN reports through 1966 reported military success. With bilateral intelligence, more accurate reports were made. The Johnson Administration called for dramatic progress reports. Among these, MACV's reports on enemy force estimates were useful to portray success. However, revised estimates showed increasing numbers, both in enemy force size and battalion and larger-scale enemy-initiated attacks. These reports were suppressed by destruction or modified through arbitrary cuts by military officials. Thus news on the war was falsified to the public.

Between 1930 and 1965, four men held such key positions in
the military establishment that they essentially dominated their
profession. Although their positions were first and foremost military,
the non-military implications inherent in their offices were
of such nature as to involve the office holder in a wide range of
national affairs at the highest levels. Using as a method comparative
biographical sketches of Generals of the Army Douglas MacArthur,
George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and General Maxwell Taylor, conelusions
are derived which, it is hoped, will assist in determining
an appropriate role for the Army officer in matters of national leadership.

The Key West Agreement of 1948 (KWA) was crucial in the Navy's fight to save naval aviation from Air Force encroachment. Prior to the KWA, the Air Force attempted to control the roles and missions surrounding naval aviation. The Air Force in fact, wished to emasculate naval aviation, which in turn would have made it downplayed its importance during the early Cold War years. But the KWA assigned all roles and missions surrounding naval aviation to the Navy and not to the Air Force. In so doing, the KWA gave the Navy the right to control all land- and carrier-based aviation as well as develop new technology and weapon systems such as the supercarrier. Without the KWA, the Navy could have lost control of naval aviation. The thesis highlights the importance of the KWA, and explains reasons why historians have failed to focus adequate attention to the subject.

The intelligence services of the Soviet Union capitalized on several factors that facilitated their successful penetration of Los Alamos Laboratory, allowing them access to the secrets of the atomic bomb. The freedoms enjoyed in a democratic society, the appeal of communism, and the special considerations of wartime presented an environment in the United States conducive for the development and operation of Soviet spy networks. While these conditions did present the Soviets with circumstances favorable for espionage work, the foremost reason for the Soviet Union's skillful theft of atomic secrets from Los Alamos Laboratory involved the fact that they had help from inside of the Manhattan Project. The contributions of Theodore Hall, Klaus Fuchs, and David Greenglass allowed the Soviet Union to obtain critical information on both technologies required to develop the atomic bomb as well and a detailed bomb design.

In 1936, approximately three thousand Americans volunteered to aid Spain fight the Fascist rebellion of Fransisco Franco, and his German and Italian allies. About thirty percent of the volunteers were Jewish--a ratio so large as to be statistically improbable. Why were so many Jews impelled to go to Spain to fight for the Spanish Republic? Many were Communists, Socialists, unionists, and assorted antifascists, determined to stop the fascist threat in Europe. It was also seen as a chance to fight Hitler with bullets, not only words. The religion, culture and tradition of the Jews requires each person to seek justice and equality, not only for himself, but for all people. The Jewish volunteers were not only fighting the fascist antisemite--they were fighting to make the world a better place for all people.

For three decades a handful of giant American Corporations dominated the world computer industry. In the late 1980s a host of relatively small firms seized industry leadership. Many saw in this astounding reversal of fortune the birth of an open, progressive, highly competitive and democratic computer industry. This thesis contends instead that the fall of the great computer companies, and the rise to leadership of firms that were undercapitalized and shortsighted, threatened the long-term competitive strength of the American computer industry. The historical record shows that multi-billion investments by the great computer companies built the technological foundation for the "age of the desktop." As the great companies faltered, new firms entering the industry simply did not take up the slack in research and investment. With investment falling in the U.S., and soaring in the Pacific-Rim countries, continued American leadership of this vital industry became an open question. Insights gained from studying this almost incredible episode have profound implications for all technology intensive industries.

The repatriation of prisoners of war during the Korean Conflict presented the greatest problem to the armistice negotiators trying to end the fighting. Problems arose in the interpretation of various articles of the Geneva Convention of 1949 as it related to prisoners of war. The Communist interpreted these articles to mean that prisoners of war had to be repatriated back to their country of origin. The United Nations position was that the intent of the Geneva Convention meant that prisoners of war had a choice. This war within a war prolonged the Korean Conflict for more than one year. As Admiral C. Turner Joy, chief UNC negotiator stated: "Voluntary repatriation cost us over a year of war and cost us our United Nations Command prisoners in Communist camps a year of captivity." Because of these negotiations, a precedent was set for future repatriation of POW's.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the policy of "unconditional surrender" and the historical role of Joseph C. Grew and his attempts to affect this policy. Grew was a career diplomat who served as Ambassador to Japan from 1932 to 1942 and he also served as Under Secretary and Acting Secretary of State between December 1944 and August 1945. Grew's experience made him one of the administration's diplomatic experts on Japan and he became a key figure in the formulation of the eventual surrender policy. The traditional analysis of Grew argued that he was an advocate of a "soft peace" with Japan because he suggested the retention of the Emperor as a means of quickly ending the war. However, throughout Grew's tenure as a member of the State Department he continued to publicly and enthusiastically support the administration's call for unconditional surrender. The evidence shows that Grew's concern for the retention of the Emperor was based upon his pragmatic belief that the institution of the throne was the best formula for ending the war quickly with a minimum loss of American and Allied lives.

The perception of the Cuban missile crisis created in the 1960s has undergone drastic changes in the quarter century following that event. The emerging picture in the 1990s is a very different one from the original limited view of respectful acclaim and admiration for President John F. Kennedy and his advisors. Historians of the crisis have rushed to develop new perspectives without full use of all material available. Existing American declassifications help explain Soviet motives but do not justify them. Soviet and Cuban archival sources remain virtually untapped. Existing oral histories require documentary confirmation. The bulk of all multi-national archival material remains unavailable. The study of the crisis has not passed beyond its preliminary stages with the full story still to be written.

A new form of combat, aerial warfare, made its debut in the
twentieth century. Unlike land and naval services, the air
fighters of the twentieth century had no long tradition of
accepted combat practices to follow. The successful air fighters
of World War One found that competitive aircraft flown by pilots
using solid basic fighter maneuvers in a sound aggressive way
were the essential elements for victory in air combat. Modern
fighter pilots have discovered through bitter experience that,
despite changing technology, the principles of air combat
discovered in the early twentieth century are axiomatic for
success in the aerial combat arena. Fighter air superiority,
gained through application of these basic principles, is
essential if air forces are to carry out their tactical missions
of reconnaissance, close air support, and interdiction.