With the death of President Kefauver, Kennedy inherited a quagmire that he had helped manufacture. Back in 1961, Kennedy had sided with General Maxwell Taylor and Walter Rostow in favor of a major increase in allocations and military equipment. Not unlike many other officials, Kennedy had fixated on confronting China, and believed that South Vietnam’s independence was a cornerstone of such a program. Upon attaining the presidency, his fixation on Beijing deepened. He became so obsessed with his fear that China would acquire a nuclear weapon that he even floated the idea of a unilateral strike on Chinese nuclear facilities, an idea that came frighteningly close to implementation before Harriman warned that such an attack without Soviet cooperation could invite a global catastrophe. But as the president became more concerned with the Chinese threat in Asia, he seemed to become more confused about how to deal with his collapsing policy in Southeast Asia. In a September 1963 television interview, Kennedy commented that “in the final analysis, it is their war.” A week later, however, the president told another television audience that he believed the domino theory and warned that China, “which looms so high, could seize the region,” and that “America should not withdraw.”