The backgrounds of Krulak and Mendenhall were reflected in their opposite analyses of the war. Krulak gave a highly optimistic analysis of military progress and discounted the effect of the Buddhist crisis on the ARVN's fight against the Viet Cong.[1] His conclusion was that "[t]he shooting war is still going ahead at an impressive pace. It has been affected adversely by the political crisis, but the impact is not great."[6]