“The most thoughtful and judicious one-volume history of the war and the American political leaders who presided over the difficult and painful decisions that shaped this history. The book will stand for the foreseeable future as the best study of the tragic mistakes that led to so much suffering.”—Robert DallekMany books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the … regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent, brilliant, and previously successful men stumbled so badly.
That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson. Yet beyond that, Road to Disaster is also the first history of the war to look at the cataclysmic decisions of those in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations through the prism of recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and organizational theory to explain why the “Best and the Brightest” became trapped in situations that suffocated creative thinking and willingness to dissent, why they found change so hard, and why they were so blind to their own errors.
An epic history of America’s march to quagmire, Road to Disaster is a landmark in scholarship and a book of immense importance.
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The most thoughtful and judicious one-volume history of the war and the American political leaders who presided over the difficult and painful decisions that shaped this history. The book will stand for the foreseeable future as the best study of the tragic mistakes that led to so much suffering.
Why do smart people do stupid things? That is the tragic question at the heart of this brilliant exploration of American leaders and the Vietnam War. With keen insight, some clever new analytical tools, and storytelling drive, Brian VanDeMark has made a timeless tale fresh and riveting—and highly relevant.
did not finish. Which is surprising given that I love ready military history
A good story well told
The author uses the simplistic and facile “experiments” of psychologists and social scientists to “discover” what men now dead THOUGHT – and not only that, but psychologically WHY they thought it – to “explain” what went wrong in Vietnam. Sane people acknowledge that they often don’t know these things about their most intimate friends, let alone about public figures. This is hindsight raised to the level of omniscience, and can only be described as hubris on the part of the author. McNamara, Johnson, Rusk and the joint chiefs have much to atone for, so perhaps they deserve these false “insights”. but people seeking to learn about and from history deserve better than the smugness and complacency this volume is likely to promote. A reader is likely to conclude, “Thank God we now know better”, not that his or her own thoughts and actions might benefit from critical analysis.
Had a ton of sources but did lay out the facts in historical order especially the phony setup for basically reversing Kennedy’s withdrawal orders by fabricating the reasons for going to war by the LBJ/DNC war mongers faction. PS I did my time with the 101st as an Infantryman running recon teams .
Histories of the Vietnam War are abundant. As these proliferate, as is now the case with over fifty years past America’s initial combat unit involvement in 1965, historians begin to gather and lump similar views into groups. For the Vietnam War these groups have evolved into two main genres – the orthodox and revisionist views.
The orthodox – represented by such works as David Halberstam’s “Best and Brightest,” Neil Sheehan’s “A Bright and Shining Star,” Stanley Karnow’s “Vietnam: A History,” and George Herring’s “America’s Longest War” – generally portrays the war as an immoral conflict fought with no primary US national interest at stake. In so doing, the US supported a hopelessly corrupt and illegally formed South Vietnam State, and opposed a foe who rightfully represented the nationalistic aspirations of the Vietnamese people. Moreover, the war, because of the above, was unwinnable and resulted in the needless loss of over 58,000 American and millions of Vietnamese lives.
On the other hand, the revisionist view sees the war as, what former President Ronald Reagan called, “a noble cause.” It was intended rightfully to stop the flow of communism in Asia, as the US had successfully done in Europe. The US failed to do that because American civilian leaders did not provide the means and ways that its military needed to accomplish its mission.
Professor Brian VanDeMark writes what he calls “A New History” of the war, indicating perhaps that this latest rendition is different from those that had come before, i.e., neither orthodox or revisionist. But is this so? And how is it different?
Certainly, for this reviewer at least, a book by this author on the Vietnam War could be newsworthy. Professor VanDeMark after all assisted Robert McNamara in the Secretary’s writing of his memoirs – the now infamous “In Retrospect.” And in this regard his book could be something new and perhaps revealing if he would provide some additional insights on McNamara’s role in the war.
Here the author does not entirely disappoint, at least in the number of times he provides new quotes from McNamara on his role in the war revealed to him as he assisted in the writing of the Secretary’s memoirs. Unfortunately, many of these ‘new’ revelations from McNamara are not really new because they repeat the same “In Retrospect” apologies. The only new points of view offered are the depth of the architect of the Vietnam War’s remorse for his mistakes, and the author’s sympathies for them.
Despite this ‘nothing really new’ portion of the book, Professor VAnDeMark does offer a new approach throughout his work in his description and analyses of the US decision making interactions and processes during the war. Here he successfully uses the works of several social psychologists to explain “How and why did such intelligent and patriotic men not only make such unwise decisions but continue to make them despite circumstances and their previous professional accomplishments.” All of this is done quite convincingly in examining and providing useful insights into the pitfalls of assumption making, the influence of previous experiences and education, and the dangers of human arrogance and shortsightedness.
Beyond these pitfalls, Professor VanDeMark’s greatest contribution in this work to the overall history of the war is to avoid the judgments and second-guessing of both the orthodox and revisionist viewpoints and focus on what is relevant as a lesson of the war – how to create more effective decision-making in wartime. Here he concludes, “Dealing with immensely complex problems like Vietnam demands a disciplined routine in which decision-makers acknowledge their fallibility, talk frankly with one another—most especially, share their apprehensions (which Johnson, McNamara, and the chiefs never really did)—and adopt methodical teamwork to catch problems and increase the probability that they have the critical information they need when they need it in order to craft solutions to the problems facing them”
All in all then this work is a refreshing look at what matters in looking at the American experience in the Vietnam War – how and why did US leaders make such terrible decisions that led to disaster and defeat, and how can we learn from their mistakes.