Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205500 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

From Amazon.com
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.

From Booklist
The debate continues. Was the Vietnam War "lost" because of a failed national policy that refused to recognize Vietnamese Communism as a legitimate nationalist movement, or was it lost because of the spinelessness and meddling of Washington politicians who undermined brave Americans and South Vietnamese in the field? Sorley, a West Pointer and former CIA official, leans toward the latter explanation. Sorley points out the considerable successes in prosecuting the ground war and "nation building" in the hamlets and cities. The triumvirate responsible for those successes was General Creighton Abrams, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and the director of the pacification program, William Colby. Sorley convincingly portrays them as both dedicated and wise, and he passionately argues that, given time and support, they could have achieved America's goal of a viable, non-Communist South Vietnam. Unfortunately, Sorley gives short shrift to counter arguments. Still, his points are well supported by reliance on newly available source material, and he makes a strong contribution to our unending national argument. Jay Freeman

Customer Reviews

Not revisionist history
I am writing in response to the many critical reviews of this book, as to the actual book. Many reviewers call this revisionist history, and claim that Lewis Sorley's admiration for General Abrams biases the work. Sorley is obviously a great fan of General Abrams, but hey, most people who knew him were fans of his. He was a great soldier, leader, and General. I studied guerrilla warfare before I went to Vietnam (1966-1967). I was part of the Westmoreland multi-battalion offensive actions against the communist forces. I returned to Vietnam (1970-1971) to experience the Abrams emphasis on population security and control. Both type operations are necessary to successfully win a guerrilla war, but Abrams emphasis was clearly the better long term strategy. I suspect that most of the critical comments about this book are written by those most against America's presence in Vietnam. I my opinion, Sorley speaks the truth here. He has done a masterful job of presenting the way the war was fought after the 1968 Tet offensive. Like it or not, that is the way it really was. It is a story that not enough people have heard.

An Embarrassing Book of Historical Wishes, Not History
The author is clearly heavily biased in his opinions, causing him to create a book of unsubstantiated conclusions surrounding his hero, General Creighton Abrams. Many -- perhaps most -- of his revolutionary conclusions are completely unreferenced, even though he claims he could footnote every sentence. Given this, is the author deliberately deceptive, or just incompetent?

Since the author's conclusions are so radically different than the consensus of dozens of highly respected writers, it becomes the case of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." This the author clearly does not provide, and his gushing admiration of Abrams openly exposes his biases and complete lack of objectivity.

Do not read this book if you want the truth about the Vietnam War.

Great information, could be better written
This is a very serious book. It's packed with detail and analysis from previously unrevealed sources and first-hand interviews. That's both a good and bad thing. Good because Sorley makes his case very well, bad because sometimes the detail gets a bit monotonous and tedious. But, overall, this is a fine book that is sure to challenge some commonly held beliefs about the Vietnam War.

As the subtitle makes clear, Sorley deals exclusively with the latter half of the war, namely from General Creighton Abrams' promotion to commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam in 1968 to the final U.S. pullout in 1975. Sorley concludes that this period of the war was vastly different from the first half - different tactics, different strategy, different and better results. It was, in essence, a better war.

Abrams' successor was General Westmoreland, and he preferred large divisions that searched for the enemy in the jungles. This caused high casualties, confusion among the ranks, logistical difficulties, and lowered morale, especially among the enlisted men.

Abrams arrived with a different strategy. Rather than search-and-destroy with large divisions, he preferred secure-and-hold with smaller units. He believed that the war would be won at the village level. The villages must remain safe from North Vietnam Army (NVA) attacks and Viet Cong infiltrations. Once that happened, the larger cities like Saigon could go on the offensive and secure themselves from enemy shelling. With the cities and villages secure, the South Vietnamese could organize their own forces, units that included village, city, and regional troops. Once that was done, the U.S. Army could slowly leave the ground fighting to the South Vietnamese while supplying air cover, supplies, and advice.

According to Sorley, by 1972 this strategy had succeeded, so well that the war could have been considered won. The villages were safe and secure, the VC was no longer a factor, and the NVA was nowhere in South Vietnam. Massive U.S. air strikes had slowed the flow of NVA troops and war equipment to the South along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

So if all this is true, then what happened? Why did the communists win the war? Several reasons, according to Sorley:

Lack of support from the politicians at home. Congress and the Nixon Administration were more concerned with pulling out and less concerned with victory. By 1972, Abrams had fewer than 50,000 troops at his disposal, which makes his achievements even more impressive.
Unflagging support for the North from China and the Soviet Union. When the Paris agreement was ratified, and the North immediately violated it by flooding the South with troops and tanks, the U.S. failed in its promise to punish the North with air support. The Communists proved better allies than the U.S., because they kept the North well-stocked, while the South steadily ran out of supplies.
North Vietnamese officials kept in constant contact with the anti-war movement in America, using it to spread communist propaganda and lies. This undermined public support for the war, which at one time was high.
This is the essence of Sorley's book. It's a powerful case. What I found sad was America's total abandonment of South Vietnam. We had fought for years to keep the country from communist domination and then threw it all away when victory was so close.

It was not our finest hour.