More than in most democracies,Ameri

More than in most democracies,American foreign policy making has allowed considerable room for the influence of public opinion. Perhaps the clearest examples can be drawn from the Vietnam War. It was the loss of public support for further escalation as shown in opinion polls and in the results of the New Hampshire primary that led President Johnson to announce in March 1968 the end of that policy and his refusal to stand for election for a second term. Inthrestingly, the available evidence at the time of his announcement showed that the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies had been crushed by the military response to their Tet offensive. Thereafter it became an article of faith in Washington that the United States would not be able to engage in prolonged warfare because it would not be supported by public opinion.
Interest groups also tend to exercise more influence on American foreign relations than is generally true of other democracies. The business or corporate sector has traditionally exercised influence both in the sense of advocating parti-cular policies and in the more high-minded purpose of supplying leading personnel from the private sector to hold high positions in the public bureaucracy.
American idealism nor the process of its foreign policy making allow for the conduct of diplomacy in the often secret, unemotional and professional way associated with traditional Europe. Not surprisingly, it has often disappointed realists for whom 'the proper sphere of foreign policy' is the 'middle ground of subtle distinctions, complex choices, and precarious manipulations'. Since 1945