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Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam Paperback – May 8, 1998

by H. R. McMaster (Author)

697 customer reviews

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"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 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 transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster 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.

A page-turning narrative, Dereliction Of Duty focuses 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.

McMaster’s only book, Dereliction of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.

Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

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Editorial Reviews

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The "error not of values and intentions but of judgment and capabilities" to which Robert McNamara admitted in In Retrospect (1995) leaves out his deceptions that helped plunge America into the Vietnam War. McNamara may not have remembered them in his memoir, but army officer McMaster found them in the Joint Chiefs of Staff's archives for the crucial decision-making years of 1964 and 1965. Distilled to its essence, McMaster's thesis proposes that the plans and advice on Vietnam prepared by the nation's military advisers were systematically sidetracked by McNamara. Two facts exemplify the whole dense forest of facts McMaster explores: the prediction of the Joint Chiefs of the Army and Marine Corps that "victory" would require five years and 500,000 troops only reached LBJ's ears once (he didn't listen, obviously), and the Pentagon war games of McNamara's theory of "graduated pressure" eerily ended in stalemate. McNamara suppressed all such warning signs, theorizes McMaster, because he was responding to LBJ's anxiety to keep Vietnam's "noise level" down until the 1964 election was over and the Great Society safely enacted. As damning of the civilian leaders as he is, McMaster doesn't blithely exonerate the brass. They didn't heed their own warnings and acquiesced in McNamara's incrementalist policy, in the hope of eventually getting the huge force they diffidently advised would be needed to win. Writing about an ocean of memos, meetings, and reports as he does, McMasters delivers a narrative more diligent than dramatic, but his take on pinpointing the architect(s) of the Vietnam fiasco should prove, nonetheless, of high interest. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product details

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Later Printing edition (May 8, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0060929081
ISBN-13: 978-0060929084
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 697 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Asian
- #11 in Books > History > Asia > Southeast Asia
- #12 in Books > History > Military > United States > Vietnam War

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Top customer reviews

A must read if you served in Vietnam.

ByD Won October 18, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Outstanding book. I served in Vietnam and thought I knew a lot about the politics of the war. After reading this book I now have a much better understanding. No blood and guts or description of the battles. Just the politics.

77 comments 107 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

White House Intrigue

ByRichard C. Geschkeon February 19, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The makings of the Vietnam War upon serious study and retrospect will make one want to scream. How our White House under the leadership of Lyndon Baines Johnson gradually and without the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff got involved in a land war in Vietnam.
In a period of two years of constant arguing and intrigue the United States found itself hopelessly entangled in a war. Much of the military leaders advised against getting involved in the war. The only White House official who argued against military involvement was George Ball who did not bring his dissent outside the walls of the White House.
H.R. McMaster brings forth the wrong thinking and mistake prone analysis of President Johnson and Robert McNamara who stumbled their way in making a full military commitment. In doing so in a stealthy way and lying to the American public they found themselves fully immersed in a political civil war in which we could not win.

77 comments 100 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A history of twisted thought and the Coppola Four-Star Clowns

ByDr. Lee D. CarlsonHALL OF FAMEon February 28, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

For those of age during the Vietnam war, there is no doubt that objectivity is difficult as to why America got involved and eventually pulled out. The view of those who fought the war is usually quite different from those who instigated it and were responsible for its disastrous outcome. It takes courage to go into battle and fight for a cause that through the detestable bureaucratic legislation called the draft one is forced to fight for. It takes just as much courage to voluntarily fight in a war that has been marketed as being necessary, unavoidable, and winnable. This book gives further evidence that the disaster of the Vietnam war was not the result of those who fought it, but rather with the DC clowns who feigned competence in military matters and those who remained silent or acquiesced in the horrible circus of political maneuvering.

There are some who may hold to the premise that Lyndon Johnson and his closest advisors showed real guts in attempting to fight against the Vietnamese Communist threat and to “save American face”. But it does not take any intestinal fortitude or keen intellect to indulge in the deceit and verbal machinations that are delineated in meticulous detail in this book. For those readers who want the raw, naked truth about Vietnam, this book is highly recommended, and its study will reveal that the author has definitely done his homework.

Having its origin in the National Security Act of 1947, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) during the Vietnam war is portrayed in this book as more of a collection of “technicians for planners” than a body of individuals who carefully thought out strategies and tactics. Some readers may be shocked as to what little influence the JCS had on actual policy decisions during the buildup of the war and its actual execution in the years that followed. One can only wonder whether this was the result of tacit agreement with those policies or rather from an excess of veneration for the Presidency and his cabinet officers. The author seems to argue for a superposition of both of these, and frequently the JCS is accused of placating the president.

Robert McNamara is rightfully portrayed as an evil demon in this book, as a government bureaucrat who cannot engage in self-criticism and smug in the certainty of his analysis and assessments of progress in the war. McNamara’s dwelling at the time was definitely a cesspool of apodictic certainty as is well brought out in this book, especially in the manner in which he interacted with the president and the JCS.

Johnson failed along with his vision of the Great Society. The JCS failed. Robert McNamara and Cyrus Vance failed. The only success of that time was the drive to end the debacle of the Vietnam war. This book is a microscopic view of these failures, and the biggest lesson to take away from the study of this book is an appreciation of just how removed from reality a government bureaucracy can be, and how uncritical adulation for a president or an idea can result in horrible destruction and heartache.

11 comment 126 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

A book that will make you angry...

ByGut Reaction Reviewson September 10, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

If you served in Vietnam, served during the Vietnam era, had a relative who was killed or served, knew someone who was killed or served, or care anything about the senseless war that defined the sixties, then this book will make you angry.

McMaster goes into painstaking detail about the politics and incompetence that not only kept us in Vietnam, but in how the war escalated to the point that it did. Since this is a review of the book and not the war, I will, as hard as it is, keep my comments focused on the book. I will say that this was a difficult book to read as I kept getting angry about how the whole thing was handled. I was in the military from 1966 to 1969 and, as many of us did, knew this was a war we should have never been in.

My problem with the book is that although McMaster does an excellent job of providing insight into who was making decisions, the political climate of the time, and the lack of military expertise being listened to, the book is very repetitive. He explains an event, then gives a different view of the same event, but feels the need to repeat much of what he has already said.

After slogging through the minutiae and finally reaching the epilogue, I was expecting some new insight about what I had just read. Instead, it was a recap of the book, and one could almost read it alone and get the message McMaster intended.

This is an important book. It proves that we do not learn from the past, and just how much our government is capable of doing to keep the American public in the dark. For me one of the saddest quotes is from Admiral David Lamar McDonald, “Maybe we military men are all weak. Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table….. I was part of it and sort of ashamed of myself too. At times I wonder, ‘why did I go along with this kind of stuff?'”

Yes, why did you? Okay I said I was not going to lose focus.

This one gets three stars. It could have been better written but it is a must read.

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Five Stars

One of the best books written about the Vietnam conflict.

Published 9 hours ago by D. Potter

Five Stars

Very good read

Published 18 hours ago by Michael D Addington

Spry By!

Well written, cogently argued, well documented. One of the clearest discussions of any issue I have read.Read more

Published 1 day ago by seg

A great study in how Vietnam went so wrong.

A great explanation of how our political and military leaders went so wrong in Vietnam. McMaster places the blame where history has shown it belongs.Read more

Published 3 days ago by Sherill Moyer

As I read this excellent work I came to realize that it was worse ...

Having read a number of books in this general area, I was galled by the disclosures and insights gained.Read more

Published 3 days ago by Libertyhound

Not deep enough

I anticipated an analysis of troop/unit deployments and their impact. He stopped short of that analysis. I think that would have made a better book.

Published 4 days ago by Lynn

The fact that H. R. McMaster is on ...

The fact that H. R. McMaster is on the President's team and His integrity, I wanted to become more educated.

Published 5 days ago by Dianne K. Lavalle

Eyeopening in perspective and detail - towards a very dark side of some of the most popular Presidents

I am still on Chapter 4. The detail and perspective of this book is truly astounding. Stripped of the political fan-boism, and read in combination with other accounts of...Read more

Published 9 days ago by TwinPeaker

Four Stars

Frightening

Published 10 days ago by Tauna D. Mcbee

Excellent read

Very well done although the subject is unsettling.

Published 12 days ago by Roger P. Zabkie

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