A picture of the president who staked his personal standing on a doomed program and paid for it with his political life. Stuck with a war that was never ending he grasped for any information that hinted at progress, telling the press and the public that a promised turning point was coming. Reports in the situation room told a different story. What emerges is a portrait of a desperate president looking for signs of progress and manipulating information concerning the actual course of events to paint a picture of a successful policy. The American venture in Vietnam overwhelmed its chief architect.