The spring 1965 deployment of U.S. ground forces to South Vietnam and initiation of sustained aerial and naval bombardments of the North by the U.S. military marked a turning point in the history of the Vietnamese Revolution. Until recently, Western scholars only vaguely understood Hanoi's attitude toward those developments and what they meant for the revolution it spearheaded. Newly available materials from Vietnam provide a clearer picture of the concerns of North Vietnamese policymakers in the period immediately before and after the American intervention. Based on such materials, this article demonstrates that, when it committed the North to a wider war with the United States, Hanoi did so reluctantly. Having made the commitment, however, it stopped at nothing to guarantee the ultimate success of its efforts.