America in Vietnam
by Guenter Lewy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Guenter LewyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1980-05-29
ISBN: 0195027329
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of America in Vietnam
Book Review: Still Standing
Summary: 5 Stars
A testament to the quality of this highly readable book is the fact that it is still in print thirty years after its initial publication. That is all the more impressive considering that Guenter Lewy began writing this book only a few months after the fall of Saigon. History normally requires the detachment and distance that time offers.
Lewy's central argument is that the United States failed in Vietnam because of the incompetence of its military. The person most responsible for this outcome was General William Westmoreland. Under Westmoreland, Americans sought out and engaged the North Vietnamese Army in big unit, fire-power intensive battles, ignoring pacification where Lewy and North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap believed the war was won and lost. The U.S. Army pursued this strategy out of ignorance, arrogance, and impatience. The Americans wanted to focus on what they did well--what are now called "kinetic operations," which is to say combat,--and ignored things at which take too long and required skills they did not possess--understanding the land, people, and history of Vietnam.
Although Lewy's overall argument is persuasive, putting the onus on Westmoreland is a bit unfair. The General never had command of U.S. Marine Corps or U.S. Air Force assets. Also, as Lewy points out, the flawed operational approach continued under Westy's successor General Creighton Abrams. Lewy also shows that there were several systemic issues that worked against the military. The caliber of officers diminished as the war progressed, because draft deferments allowed the "best and brightest" to avoid duty in Vietnam. The enlisted ranks also began to deteriorate. The heavy drug usage among soldiers was a product of the fact the military was taking more and more individuals who social misfits before they joined the service.
Lewy tackles a number of issue, many of which were and still are emotionally loaded. He dismisses arguments that the war was immoral. All wars are cruel and to focus on the suffering is beside the point. Atrocities happened, but they were never intentional on a large-scale basis. Then enemy had a dirtier record than the United States in this conflict. He also dismisses allegations that the military doctored intelligence reports. This issue became a bone of contention between Westmoreland and CBS News and led to his famous lawsuit in the early 1980s. These charges were floating around long before CBS reported them and Lewy calls them "unfounded," because the disputed figures did not reflect individuals that caught the United States off guard in the biggest surprise of the war, the Tet Offensive (p. 75.)
Despite all these problems, the United States came much closer to winning than most people think. Would pacification have worked? Obviously that is as question that no one can answer, but Lewy makes it clear that the U.S. effort was deeply flawed, and other approaches certainly appear to have had a better chance of victory than the one that was pursued.
Summary of America in Vietnam
Based on a variety of classified military records, Lewy provides the first systematic analysis of the course of the Vietnam War, the reasons for the failure of American strategy and tactics, and the causes of the final collapse of South Vietnam.20th Century Books
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