1954 in the Vietnam War 5 April The National Security Council met again to consider U.S. intervention at Điện Biên Phủ. The Army, including Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgway, was negative, stating that U.S. intervention would require 7 army divisions and heavy air support. 7 April President Eisenhower used the phrase "falling dominoes" in a press conference. This was the origin of the domino theory which postulated that if Vietnam became communist the other nearby states would soon follow. The domino theory was a prominent justification for the Vietnam War in the United States during the 1960s. 14 April Secretary of State John
History of the United Kingdom during the First World War be their attitude towards England? What about India and the Mediterranean?" The Liberal Party might have survived a short war, but the totality of the Great War called for strong measures that the Party had long rejected. The result was the permanent destruction of the ability of the Liberal Party to lead a government. Historian Robert Blake explains the dilemma: Blake further notes that it was the Liberals, not the Conservatives who needed the moral outrage of Belgium to justify going to war, while the Conservatives called for intervention from the start of the crisis on the grounds of "realpolitik"