South Korea's role in the Indochina War - providing an expeditionary force of over three hundred thousand combat troops and unremitting hawkish support for U. S. actions illustrates two features of the war. The first was the benighted American attempt to internationalize the war as a cover for U. S. intervention. The second was the American utilization of Third Country Military Forces (TCMF), generally completely and secretly financed and equipped by the United States, to supplement U. S. ground forces.' Both aspects of U. S. strategy related to a principal objective of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in American domestic politics: to delay or prevent public perception of the real nature of the war and the acts of the U. S. government.