LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail

Summary

“In this book, I have sought to blend personal experience, journalism, and scholarship. It is history written by a journalist who was there.” —Peter L.W. Osnos

Discover untold insights of the critical Vietnam War decisions made by President Johnson and Robert McNamara, their struggles with policy reversals, and the lessons relevant to today’s conflicts. Also featuring a unique audio bonus with exclusive, candid audio from McNamara’s memoir creation.

LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail details how President Lyndon B. Johnson and his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, made choices central to US strategy in Vietnam, ending in defeat. The portrait emerges of men who knew that conventional victory was impossible but who could not or would not reverse the policies that they and the military pursued.

In their own words, especially McNamara's, how and why this happened is a story never before told with such immediacy and insight. LBJ and McNamara reflects how decisions about policy and strategy were made in the Vietnam era—which in the aftermath of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and those in Ukraine and Gaza is relevant to our times. The lessons for today's policy-makers are clear. The imperfections of decision-making are always much more apparent in retrospect.

The audiobook also features unique bonus audio in which you will hear McNamara working with his editors as his controversial 1995 memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam was being written, dealing with astonishing frankness on major issues involving President Kennedy, President Johnson, and his own evolving views of the presidents, the Vietnam war, and himself.