Walt Whitman Rostow OBE (rahs-TOU; October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as national security advisor to president of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969.

[3] Prominent for his role in shaping US foreign policy in Southeast Asia during the 1960s, he was a staunch anti-communist, noted for a belief in the efficacy of capitalism and free enterprise, and strongly supported US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Rostow's father, Victor Rostowsky, was born in the town of Orekhov near Odessa in 1886, and was involved in the Russian socialist movement as a teenager, publishing a left-wing newspaper in the basement of his parents' house calling for the overthrow of the Emperor Nicholas II.

[18] Though the "Oil Plan" did indeed work as Rostow had promised, those taking part in the USSBS also noted that German industrial production peaked in December 1944, which led them to doubt the effects of strategic bombing as a way of breaking a nation's economy.

[21] The North Korean aggression against South Korea convinced him that the Cold War required a more militarized foreign policy as he called for greater defense spending in a speech in the fall of 1950 so a "larger full mobilization could be carried out quickly.

[31] In September 1958, Rostow left to take a professorship at Cambridge University, where he started writing his magnum opus, a book intended to debunk Marxism as a theory that became The Stages of Economic Growth.

[32] At a time when Nikita Khrushchev was boasting that the Soviet Union with its Five Year Plans would soon surpass the United States as the world's dominant economic power because what he interpreted as Marxist theory explained both the past and the future, there was much desire in the American political and intellectual establishments to assess its ideological dimensions.

[47] Park, who seized power in a 1961 coup d'état, starting in 1962 inaugurated a policy of five year plans under which the South Korean chaebol had to meet certain targets set by the government as part of the push to reach the "economic take-off" stage.

[57] In a speech written by Rostow, Kennedy announced that the 1960s would be the "Decade of Development", saying that the United States was willing and able to furnish sufficient foreign aid to allow the Third World nations to reach the "economic take-off" stage.

[59] Kennedy had come into the White House in January 1961 as a confirmed hawk, who during the 1960 election had criticized Eisenhower as "soft on Communism" for not overthrowing Fidel Castro, but the disaster of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April had cooled his martial ardor.

"[59] In October 1961, Rostow went on a fact-finding mission with General Maxwell Taylor to South Vietnam and he returned full of enthusiasm for greater American involvement in what he stated "might be the last great confrontation" with Communism.

[8] Rostow had served in World War II as an intelligence analyst with the task of selecting bombing targets in Germany, an important, but comfortable "desk job" that ensured he never saw combat, a point about which he was very sensitive.

[77] In a policy paper addressed to the Assistant Secretary of State for Asian Affairs, W. Averell Harriman, dated 2 February 1963, that began with the sentence: "Before you decide your old and respectful friend has gone off his rocker...", Rostow advocated invading North Vietnam.

Kennedy had generally ignored Rostow's advice, but Johnson started to pay attention to him after he wrote a paper in February 1964 stating a strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam would be enough to win the war.

[80] The papers Rostow wrote urged a policy of "graduated" pressure as the United States would steadily increase the level of bombing to such a point that it would ultimately lead to the destruction of North Vietnam's nascent industry.

[85] In the context of the 1964 election, Johnson found the idea of a gradual process of escalating American involvement in Vietnam appealing as it allowed him to present both as a "tough" president while also less extreme than the Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater.

[86] Rostow's consistent advocacy of strategic bombing against North Vietnam as the decisive way to win the war endeared him to Johnson as it promised a "cheap" victory that would not cost too many American lives.

[93] Although Johnson believed that Africa was a hopeless disaster, he had great hopes for developing Latin America and Asia, remembering how the New Deal infrastructure projects of the 1930s had transformed Texas, until then a very backward state.

[114] In June 1966, Janusz Lewandowski, the Polish delegate to the International Control Commission, which was supposed to police the Geneva Accords of 1954, contacted Giovanni D'Orlandi, the Italian ambassador to South Vietnam, with a peace offer.

[119] In a further hopeful sign he reported to the president in the same month that the bloody chaos of the Cultural Revolution had pushed China to the brink of civil war as "Mao's own prestige has been seriously, perhaps irretrievably, tarnished in this yet unavailing fracas".

[122] In February 1967, the Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin visited London, and the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson tried to act as a mediator to end the Vietnam war, offering to serve as an honest broker.

[100] By contrast, McNamara reported to the president in the summer of 1967 that even though American bombers by destroying hydroelectric plants had reduced North Vietnam's capacity to generate electricity by 85%, it had failed to impact meaningfully on the war.

[137] Rostow wrote in a memo advocating American economic aid to Egypt: "While no one likes the idea of paying off a bully, Nasser is still the most powerful figure in the Middle East...and has restrained wilder Arabs who have for a disastrous Arab-Israeli showdown".

[142] As more and more nations backed out of the Regatta plan, Rostow came to take a more hawkish stance, saying to Johnson that Israel should move "like a sheriff in High Noon", using violence "necessary to achieve not merely self-respect, but respect in the region".

[147] Later that day, Rostow in a memo to the president wrote "we should begin...talking with the Russians and, if possible, with others about the terms of a settlement....A ceasefire will not answer the fundamental questions in the minds of Israelis until they have acquired so much real estate and destroyed so many Egyptian planes and tanks that they are absolutely sure of their bargaining position".

[151] Rostow made it clear that he did not envision Israel permanently occupying the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, believing that an occupation would ensure that the Arab-Israeli conflict would never end.

[159] During the Tet Offensive in 1968, Rostow in a report stated that a Vietcong attack against a remote village in South Vietnam had been timed to coincide with a debate in Congress about appropriations for the war, leading Karnow to sarcastically write "as if tacticians in Hanoi consulted the Congressional Record before deploying their units".

[168] Even worryingly for Johnson, inspired by this display of presidential weakness in New Hampshire, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a politician whom many people did take seriously, entered the Democratic primaries on an anti-war platform on 16 March 1968.

[180] Rostow attached to the peace delegation a staffer from the National Security Council, William Jorden, with orders "to keep an eye on those bastards and make sure that they didn't give away the family jewels".

[196] The main villain in The Diffusion of Power was McNamara, who Rostow accused of being a defeatist from 1966 onward, charging that it was his weakness and doubts about the war that caused Johnson to hold back and not invade North Vietnam.