"Road to Disaster: A New History of America's Descent" Topic

…into Vietnam.

"Since the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, the causes, evolution, and consequences of American policy regarding Vietnam have been studied intensively.[1] The consensus of opinion is that US intervention in Vietnam was a bad idea to begin with. Direct military engagement was a worse one and the escalation thereof worst of all. Why did so many otherwise very competent people make such poor decisions? In Road to Disaster, historian Brian VanDeMark (US Naval Academy) answers that question by using social science theories of human behavior in a careful analysis of previously unreleased interview material gathered from President Lyndon Johnson's two Secretaries of Defense, Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford. The result is a remarkable and highly personal work that will interest a broad readership.

When VanDeMark was a graduate student at UCLA in 1987, one of his professors, Richard Holbrooke, invited him to work as his assistant in the editing of Clark Clifford's papers. This project introduced him to many of Clifford's friends and colleagues, including Robert McNamara, who subsequently asked VanDeMark to help him write his memoirs.[2] While recording extensive interviews and engaging in unrecorded conversations, he became friends with both men, who, in turn, encouraged their friends and colleagues to talk with him. VanDeMark also read sociological studies of human behavior in order to better explain the conduct of the principal actors in his story, above all McNamara himself, whose memoir was an honest endeavor to come to terms with his past…"

Full Review here
miwsr.com/2020-009.aspx

Amicalement
Armand