Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam | 
 enlarge | Author: H. R. Mcmaster
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  59 reviews
Sales Rank: 30539
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0060929081
Dewey Decimal Number: 959.7043373
EAN: 9780060929084
ASIN: 0060929081
Publication Date: June 1, 1998
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Amazon.com Review
For years the popular myth surrounding the Vietnam War was that the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew what it would take to win but were consistently thwarted or ignored by the politicians in power. Now H. R. McMaster shatters this and other misconceptions about the military and Vietnam in Dereliction of Duty. Himself a West Point graduate, McMaster painstakingly waded through every memo and report concerning Vietnam from every meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to build a comprehensive picture of a house divided against itself: a president and his coterie of advisors obsessed with keeping Vietnam from becoming a political issue versus the Joint Chiefs themselves, mired in interservice rivalries and unable to reach any unified goals or conclusions about the country's conduct in the war. McMaster stresses two elements in his discussion of America's failure in Vietnam: the hubris of Johnson and his advisors and the weakness of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dereliction of Duty provides both a thorough exploration of the military's role in determining Vietnam policy and a telling portrait of the men most responsible.
Product Description
"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." - H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion) Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning new analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants. Dereliction Of Duty covers the story in strong narrative fashion, focusing on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public. Sure to generate controversy, Dereliction Of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
 A Lesson In Too Much Civilian Control Of The Military August 24, 2008
To paraphrase Clausewitz: "War is a continuation of politics by other means." In a democracy such as ours we are ingrained with the concept of civilian control of the military. We have seen many instances where this was not the case (I recommend a highly readable book called "The Warlords" that depicts Hindenburg and Ludendorff's command of the Imperial German Government in World War I as an example of what can happen if the military is allowed to dictate politics in wartime).
However, there has to be a balance between the military and the civilian leadership during times of international crisis -- especially when the decision is made to commit military assets and personnel. "Dereliction of Duty" is about a regrettable lapse of this balance for whom there is much blame to be passed around.
McMaster discusses how in 1961 the new Kennedy Administration quickly dismisses the national defense structure Eisenhower had installed and quickly became disillusioned with his Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). He brings in retired Army General Maxwell Taylor who circumvents the JCS. Kennedy disillusionment was displayed after the Bay of Pigs adventure and how he kept the JCS at a distance during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. His ability to avoid a nuclear war and a land war on that island convinced him the military advisers were not the experts they claimed to be.
However, the Kennedy Administration, led by SECDEF Robert McNamara, decided the lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis could be similarly applied to a more complex problem -- Vietnam. I do not know if anybody really knows what would have happened if President Kennedy had not been killed -- many claim he would have pulled out of Vietnam after the 1964 elections but we will never know for sure -- but his successor inherited that problem and the bulk of this book is about how the Johnson Administration mis-managed Vietnam and mis-led the American people.
Lyndon Johnson wanted to win in a landslide in 1964 and could not afford a military solution in southeast Asia. So he and his aides conspired to keep the issue as minimal as possible. After his election he and his aides conspired to keep the issue as minimal as possible while he pushed his Great Society agenda. Eventually, though, the time came where he had to decide whether to withdraw and let South Vietnam go Communist or to stay and fight what he was convinced was an unwinnable war. We know the decision he made and the efforts taken to hide as much as possible the truth from the American people.
Of the main parties in this book -- the Kennedy Administration, the Johnson Administration, and the top military advisers -- probably the least guilty were the military advisers that made up the JCS. The JCS was also skeptical about winning in Vietnam but as the situation got worse they felt the military should be more pro-active. But in my opinion, they deserve the least blame for what happened for the least flattering of reasons. The JCS was largely ignored by the civilian leadership because they allowed themselves to be largely ignored. The JCS recognized what was happening but sabotaged their own credibility via inter-service rivalries. The JCS that should have been very much involved in the discussions and planning of Vietnam instead allowed itself to be marginalized.
The accounts depicted in this book is a must read for any student of history. This is especially true as this country, and in particular, the Democratic Party, became and is still gun shy about how to use the military and how to approach national defense. Many still believe the lessons of Vietnam failure is to stay away from foreign adventures even if our interests are at stake. But such people ignore why Vietnam was a failure. I do not believe the main characters in this book deliberately set out to fail in Vietnam but they deliberately took actions that resulted in that failure. And this country is still impacted by their actions forty plus years after the fact.
LBJ and his assistant liars March 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a clear indictment of LBJ and his closest advisers on the policy on and war in Vietnam. Why was the Vietnam War lost? It was lost because of the fault of LBJ. The war was lost in Washington before it even began in Vietnam. LBJ shared the same distrust and despise of the military with his closest adviser, Robert S. McNamara. How can a military campaign be won if a leader does not trust his military experts? How can a war be won if a president does not listen to the recommendations of his military experts and instead follow the strategy set by his civilian advisers who have little or no military experience?
Plus, LBJ and McNamara consistently misled Congress and the American people about the U.S. policy toward Vietnam as well as the situations in Vietnam. Can a war be won based on lies? I would think not.
The most outrageous thing is that McNamara based his whole policy of "gradual pressure" for Vietnam on his single experience in the Cuban Missile crisis. Only an idiot, in this case a super-arrogant idiot, would rely on a single experience for the war in Vietnam. McNamara thought he was an instant military expert just because he defused the Cuban Missile crisis. What a fool he was! McNamara should have studied the past great generals and military leaders on how they lead and fight wars. But alas, he was too proud for that.
Though this book place equal blames on LBJ, McNamara and the Joint Chiefs, I strongly disagree with the author on this view. The Joint Chiefs had been systematically excluded from strategy and policy setting in LBJ administration. They were powerless. Therefore, the failure of the Vietnam War and the dead of 50,000 U.S. soldiers should be placed only on LBJ and McNamara.
In my opinion, the best way to view a presidency is to see what kind of top-level people he uses. Looking at LBJ, one can clearly see that he used smart people, but these people were arrogant liars and master-pleasing compromisers. No wonder Vietnam War was such a dismal failure.
Why only four stars? The author is very repetitious - the same points were stressed over and over again. Also, the writing style was very dry.
A Timeless Classic! August 28, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Vietnam War took the lives of 58,000 Americans and over one million Vietnamese, while consuming billions of U.S. dollars and leaving Vietnam in ruins. It also led Americans to question the integrity of their government as never before.
McMaster provides a detailed history of the top-level decision-making in Washington regarding the war. Readers clearly realize that while General Taylor (then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Secretary Mcnamara consistently withheld, watered-down, and misrepresented JCS views to LBJ, McNamara also bent Vietnamese leadership positions to his own and kept the JCS out of the decision-making loop to create a greatly "overstated" sense of unanimity.
The JCS, however, were far from blameless. Some allowed themselves to be bought off in return for service enlargement (Marines), reappointing General LeMay despite his bombastic attitude (Air Force), or maintenance within the existing power structure (Navy). Meanwhile, the group never seemed to get beyond inter-service rivalry - eg. the Air Force proposing "solutions" that featured bombing, the Marines proposing multiple point invasion and enclave-holding, etc. About the only thing they agreed on was that Mcnamara's strategy of limited response was doomed to failure - the French had already failed with 500,000 troops in North Vietnam, and an early Pentagon war game had eerily predicted the eventual direction of the war.
Why LBJ's direction? On the one hand, he feared being blamed for losing Vietnam to the Communists (aka Truman vs. China), while on the other did not want to detract from his re-election efforts and subsequent passage of the Great Society initiative through Congress.
Other reasons for the JCS' silence include the "lesson" of Truman vs. MacArthur, early training on allegiance to civilian control (however, this also include Congress, which also ended up woefully misinformed).
Mcmaster concludes that the Vietnam War was not lost in the field, nor on college campuses, nor the pages of the New York Times - rather it was lost in Washington, almost from the beginning.
What have we learned from "Dereliction of Duty?" At one point, it was "recommended" reading at the Pentagon's top level. On the other hand, General Sinseki clearly was pushed out prior to the Iraq War for telling the truth, as was Bush's chief economic advisor (Lindsay) for giving an unvarnished economic estimate of projected costs. Other lower-level generals have resigned to speak out rather than continue to support the Iraq War. At the same time, General Powell, in his new role as Secretary of State also failed to model forthright and assertive behavior to rebut Cheney, Rumsfeld et al, while Secretary Rumsfeld clearly failed to learn anything from McNamara's failures. Meanwhile, the book's author (Mcmaster) has been passed over twice so far for further promotion to Brigadier General.
Bottom Line: I do not question the loyalty or integrity of those in current military leadership positions. However, we have still managed to repeat the Vietnam leadership failures in Iraq.
 Interesting subject matter, bad book April 3, 2007
3 out of 22 found this review helpful
The subject of the is book is very interesting, so I struggled through to the end (with plenty of skimming), but this guy can't tell a story. Too dry, too long, no sense of style.
Tayloe Nickey
Recent history ignored - again March 24, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book presents a lacerating indictment of Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other ancillary characters in the run-up to the Vietnam War. Short sighted political thinking on the part of Johnson, equally short-sighted inter-service rivalries amongst the Joint Chiefs (as well as a failure to speak out in the face of idiotic strategic military decision making), and a hubristic sense of infallibility on the part of McNamara are described - with compelling historical evidence - as the key sources of the fiasco. The parallels with the war in Iraq are obvious. A disturbing work that once again demonstrates that far too many political and military leaders are seemingly incapable of (a) learning from history, and (b) acting on anything but the most narrow, short-term agendas - mostly centered around the advancement of their careers.
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