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“A comprehensive and long-overdue examination of the immediate post–Tet offensive years [from a] first-rate historian.” —The New York Times Book Review Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and still classified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials, award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and—at least for a time—results between the early and later years of the war. Among his most important findings is that while the war was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning on the ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War sheds new light on the Vietnam War.
“A terrific book, lively and brisk . . . a must read for anyone who tries to understand the Vietnam War.” —Thomas E. Ricks Is it possible that the riddle of America’s military failure in Vietnam has a one-word, one-man answer? Until we understand Gen. William Westmoreland, we will never know what went wrong in the Vietnam War. An Eagle Scout at fifteen, First Captain of his West Point class, Westmoreland fought in two wars and became Superintendent at West Point. Then he was chosen to lead the war effort in Vietnam for four crucial years. He proved a disaster. Unable to think creatively about unconventional warfare, Westmoreland chose an unavailing strategy, stuck to it in the face o...
During the four years General Creighton W. Abrams was commander in Vietnam, he and his staff made more than 455 tape recordings of briefings and meetings. In 1994, with government approval, Lewis Sorley began transcribing and analyzing the tapes. Sorley’s laborious, time-consuming effort has produced a picture of the senior U.S. commander in Vietnam and his associates working to prosecute a complex and challenging military campaign in an equally complex and difficult political context.The concept of the nature of the war and the way it was conducted changed during Abrams’s command. The progressive buildup of U.S. forces was reversed, and Abrams became responsible for turning the war back to the South Vietnamese.The edited transcriptions in this volume clearly reflect those changes in policy and strategy. They include briefings called the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates as well as meetings with such visitors as the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking officials. In Vietnam Chronicles we see, for the first time, the difficult task that Creighton Abrams accomplished with tact and skill.
A man of extraordinary inner strength and patriotic devotion, General Harold K. Johnson was a soldier's officer, loved by his men and admired by his peers for his leadership, courage, and moral convictions. Lewis Sorley's biography provides a fitting testament to this remarkable man and his dramatic rise from obscurity to become LBJ's Army Chief of Staff during the Vietnam War. A native of North Dakota, Johnson survived more than three grueling years as a POW under the Japanese during World War II before serving brilliantly as a field commander in the Korean War, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism." The latter experiences led to a series of hi...
"Collects seventeen essays by top military leaders of South Vietnam, composed shortly after the end of the Vietnam War. Covers a wide range of topics to present a remarkably candid and self-critical assessment of the war. Contains an introduction and epilogue by Lewis Sorley"--Provided by publisher.
He has been called the greatest American general since U.S. Grant (by Sir Robert Thompson) and the world's champion tank commander (by Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.). Yet the general public knows relatively little about this man who, for more than four decades, in three wars and in peacetime, demonstrated the skill, courage, integrity, and compassion that made him a legend in his profession. In Thunderbolt, Lewis Sorley brings us the definitive biography of Gen. Creighton Abrams, the man who commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam during the withdrawal stage and for whom the Army's main battle tank is named. This new Brassey's Five-Star Paperback places the complex and sophisticated Abrams and his many achievements within the context of the Army he served and ultimately led, and of the national and international events in which he played a vital role. It is a stirring portrait of the quintessential soldier and of the transformation of the U.S. Army from the horse brigades of the 1930s to the high-tech military force that ultimately emerged victorious in the Gulf War.
This groundbreaking study offers a major reinterpretation of American strategy during the first half of the Vietnam War. Gregory A. Daddis argues senior military leaders developed a comprehensive campaign strategy, one not confined to 'attrition' of enemy forces. This innovative work is a must for a genuine understanding of the Vietnam War.
In a riveting sequel to his celebrated Westmoreland's War, Daddis offers a bold new interpretation of America's first lost war. Upending myths of a "better war" that led to victory in Vietnam, Withdrawal is required reading for anyone hoping to understand the final years of American intervention in Southeast Asia.
The Lewis Family of Warner Hall was perhaps the most influential family in Gloucester County, Virginia, during the colonial period. The subject of a widely respected family history by Merrow Edgerton Sorley, originally published in 1935 and reprinted by the Genealogical Publishing Co., the Lewises of Warner Hall and their descendants have made notable contributions to Virginia and the nation. Since the original publication of Sorley's Lewis of Warner Hall, a debate has raged over the identity of the family's immigrant ancestor, whom Sorley presumed to be one ROBERT LEWIS of Wales. It was left to Mrs. Moses to show conclusively that Sorley was wrong and that the true immigrant ancestor of the Lewises of Warner Hall was JOHN LEWIS, who settled at Totopotomoys Creek in Gloucester County, Virginia on July l, 1653. In her vitally important little book The Welsh Lineage of John Lewis (1592-1657), originally published in 1984, Mrs. Moses traces back the Welsh side of the Lewis family for three generations in the vicinity of its ancestral home in Llangatock, Breconshire, and also resolves a number of issues surrounding the authenticity of the family coat-of-arms.
The United States had never lost a war—that is, until 1975, when it was forced to flee Saigon in humiliation after losing to what Lyndon Johnson called a "raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country." The legacy of this first defeat has haunted every president since, especially on the decision of whether to put "boots on the ground" and commit troops to war. In Haunting Legacy, the father-daughter journalist team of Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb presents a compelling, accessible, and hugely important history of presidential decisionmaking on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam debacle, under what circumstances should the United States go to war? The sobering lesson of Vietnam is that the ...