America's war in Vietnam is the textbook example of great-power arrogance and self-deception, of the abuse and dissipation of wealth and power. American leaders discovered Indochina early in World War II, when the Japanese intruded on the French empire. Indochina became enormously important to the Dwight Eisenhower administration primarily because it was perceived in 1954 as the site of the next round in the battle with the Sino-Soviet split. John F. Kennedy's first emergency in Indochina came in Laos, where Eisenhower's attempts to create a pro-Western, anti-Communist regime had proven counterproductive. M. Nixon, Republican presidential candidate, had persuaded the South Vietnamese to reject any peace terms the Lyndon Johnson administration might be prepared to accept. The American military had long advocated a strike at Vietnamese sanctuaries in Cambodia, including what they believed to be the headquarters for the Communist insurgency in the South. Fifty-five thousand Americans and millions of Vietnamese died in the American phase of the Vietnamese revolution.