Unholy Grail: The U.S. and the wars in Vietnam 1965-8

The aim of "Unholy Grail" is to examine and explain the failures which caused the American defeat in Vietnam. Based on primary sources, including the recently declassified holdings of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Archive, the work focuses upon the formulation, execution and assessments of American policy in Vietnam between the troop deployment decision of July 1965, and President Johnson's speech of 31st March 1968. While there are few heroes and several villains, it was the shared intellectual heritage of the war's planners and managers which ensured the America's failure. As Larry Cable argues, the United States was not so much out-fought by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, as out-thought. The intellectual errors were compounded by a pervasive inability on the part of the military high command and the administration to accept the intelligence reports which repeatedly portrayed the failure of key elements of American strategy, particularly with respect to the air campaign in North Vietnam. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers in military history.