A Better War

by Sorley, Lewis

• ISBN13: 9780156013093
• ISBN10: 0156013096
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-04-28
• Publisher: Mariner Books

Summary

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.

Author Biography

A third-generation graduate of West Point, Lewis Sorley also holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. He has served in the U.S. Army, on staff at the Pentagon, and later as a senior civilian official in the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the author of Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times, an excerpt of which won the 1991 Harold Peterson Prize as the year's best scholarly article on American military history, and of Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

Table of Contents

Prologue	xi
Inheritance	1	(16)
New Tactics	17	(14)
Third Offensive	31	(14)
Intelligence	45	(14)
Pacification	59	(21)
Interdiction	80	(17)
Tet 1969	97	(15)
Drawdown	112	(19)
Higher Hurdles	131	(23)
Resolution 9	154	(17)
Leaders	171	(20)
Cambodia	191	(26)
Victory	217	(11)
Toward Laos	228	(15)
Lam Son 719	243	(18)
Aftermath	261	(11)
Elections	272	(15)
Soldiers	287	(18)
Anticipation	305	(13)
Easter Offensive	318	(25)
Transition	343	(14)
Cease-Fire	357	(15)
Final Days	372	(15)
Epilogue	387	(2)
Acknowledgments	389	(8)
Glossary	397	(6)
Notes	403	(58)
Selected Bibliography	461	(22)
Index	483