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A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam Hardcover – June 3, 1999

by Lewis Sorley (Author)

127 customer reviews

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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 on authoritative materials not previously available, including thousands of hours of tape-recorded allied councils of war, award-winning military historian Lewis Sorley has given us what has long been needed-an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these important years. Among his findings is that the war was being won on the ground even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress. The story is a great human drama of purposeful and principled service in the face of an agonizing succession of lost opportunities, told with uncommon understanding and compassion. Sorley documents the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and-at least for a time-results between the early and the later war. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War is sure to stimulate controversy as it sheds brilliant new light on the war in Vietnam.

A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There was a moment when the United States had the Vietnam War wrapped up, writes military historian Lewis Sorley (biographer of two Vietnam-era U.S. Army generals, Creighton Abrams and Harold Johnson). "The fighting wasn't over, but the war was won," he says in this convention-shaking book. "This achievement can probably best be dated in late 1970." South Vietnam was ready to carry on the battle without American ground troops and only logistical and financial support. Sorley says that replacing General Westmoreland with Abrams in 1968 was the key. "The tactics changed within fifteen minutes of Abrams's taking command," remarked one officer. Abrams switched the war aims from destruction to control; he was less interested in counting enemy body bags than in securing South Vietnam's villages.

A Better War is unique among histories of the Vietnam War in that it focuses on the second half of the conflict, roughly from Abrams's arrival to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Other volumes, such as Stanley Karnow's Vietnam and Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie, tend to give short shrift to this period. Sorley shows how the often-overlooked Abrams strategy nearly succeeded--indeed, Sorley says it did succeed, at least until political leadership in the United States let victory slip away. Sorley cites other problems, too, such as low morale among troops in the field, plus the harmful effects of drug abuse, racial disharmony, and poor discipline. In the end, the mighty willpower of Abrams and diplomatic allies Ellsworth Bunker and William Colby was not enough. But, with its strong case that they came pretty close to winning, A Better War is sure to spark controversy. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Using a host of oral interviews, 455 tape recordings made in Vietnam during the years 1968-1972 and numerous other sources, military historian Sorley has produced a first-rate challenge to the conventional wisdom about American military performance in Vietnam. Essentially, this is a close examination of the years during which General Creighton Abrams was in command, having succeeded William Westmoreland. Sorley contends that Abrams completely transformed the war effort and in the process won the war on the battlefield. The North Vietnamese 1968 Tet offensive was bloodily repulsed, he explains, as was a similar offensive in 1969. Together, the 1970 American incursion into Cambodia and a 1971 Laotian operation succeeded in reducing enemy combat effectiveness. Renewed American bombing of the North and Abrams's use of air power to assist ground operations further reduced Hanoi's ability to wage war. Sorley argues that the combination of anti-war protests in America and a complete misunderstanding of the actual combat situation by the diplomats negotiating the 1973 Paris accords wasted American military victories. In spite of drug use and other problems, Sorley maintains, the army in Vietnam performed capably and efficiently, but in vain, for South Vietnam was sold out by the 1973 cease-fire, America's pullout and the failure of Congress to provide further military assistance to the South. Sure to provoke both passionate and reasoned objection, Sorley's book is as important a reexamination of the operational course of the war as Robert McNamara's In Retrospect is of the conflict's moral and political history. Maps and photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 507 pages
Publisher: Harcourt (June 3, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0151002665
ISBN-13: 978-0151002665
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 127 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #508,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #613 in Books > History > Asia > Southeast Asia
- #991 in Books > History > Military > United States > Vietnam War

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127

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Top customer reviews

Well-researched and written

BySan Juanon November 11, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Very well-researched and written story of the war from mid-1968 to the end. Lesson: do not let politicians run wars. They will screw it up. In this case, both Westmoreland and Abrams wanted to invade Laos and Cambodia to shut down the Ho Chi Minh trail, but the politicians would not let them until it was too late (1970 and 1971). By then, the politicians had de-funded the war and the troop drawdowns were fully underway. Even after giving them permission to go into Laos and Cambodia, the politicians publicly announced limits on the campaigns! Nothing like telling your enemy exactly what you are going to do! Even though I have read much about the war, I did not have a good understanding of the difference in how the war was run between Westmoreland and Abrams. The book makes this clear and makes a good case that Abrams should have been running the war two years earlier.

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Finally Some Truth

ByRobert E. Blakeon August 23, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I would say it is a "must read" for any Vietnam veteran, as it describes in well documented detail how the US forces in Vietnam were essentially blocked from victory in a winnable conflict by successive inept leadership, largely, but not entirely, at the national level. It clears up many of the questions that arose in my mind in the years following the conflict, as it should for any other downtrodden and unappreciated veteran of the Vietnam War.

Robert E. Blake
LTC, USA (ret)

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The waste was unconscionable

ByGuy Bowmanon May 23, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

An important and instructive account of the Vietnam War. Even 40 years after the fact the Vietnam War is viewed with rose colored glasses. A whole class of American intellectuals want to believe that America lost that war. Simplisms abound. Sorley sets the record straight. We withdrew and allowed what happened to unfold. The US military was never as incompetent as America wants to believe. The waste was unconscionable. And countless tens of thousands suffered for an intellectual vanity.

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Proud veteran

Bykent Tompkinson May 14, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As a Vietnam combat veteran I arrived under General Abram in MACV it was my privilege to be part of such noble and courage purpose to bring freedom and democratic to south Vietnam. One thing I learn ed from this book is how thoroughly devastating the air campaign that was Linebacker I and II was to the enemy . We had won the battle but lost the war not because of the brave American and south Vietnam soldiers but self-serving modifications of President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger

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Politicization of warfare

BySopson November 28, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A realistic point-of-view of how the Vietnam war was managed. With the press writing that the war was lost due to the 68 Tet offensive ( which most military specialists say is absolutely not true) this book agrees with many other writings that the war was taken out of professional military and second-guessed by political civilians to become the disaster that resulted. History seems to be repeating itself in Iraq and Afghanistan, very sad.

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not like all the BS books and movies

ByLytninon September 19, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Really tells the truth of the Viet Nam conflict and how Jerry Ford let thousands die not wanting to put any decisions on his shoulders. If you were there this is a must, not like all the BS books and movies.

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Lewis Sorely is one of the great 20th century historians. A Vietnam War must read book.

ByZeetonon August 15, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Lewis Sorely is one of the great 20th century historians. A Vietnam War must read book.

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The Seventies of the Vietnam War are not lkely to ...

ByChristian Walseron January 2, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The Seventies of the Vietnam War are not lkely to be told, as the failure became more and more obvious. Still Abrams managed to adapt the miltary need to the political situation which had changed. A long awaited insight in Abram's achievements