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Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam | 
 enlarge | Author: Gordon M. Goldstein
Publisher: Times Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $13.95
You Save: $11.05 (44%)
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Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 22618
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0805079718
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.730597
EAN: 9780805079715
ASIN: 0805079718
Publication Date: November 11, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A revelatory look at the decisions that led to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, drawing on the insights and reassessments of one of the war’s architects I had a part in a great failure. I made mistakes of perception, recommendation and execution. If I have learned anything I should share it." These are not words that Americans ever expected to hear from McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. But in the last years of his life, Bundy—the only principal architect of Vietnam strategy to have maintained his public silence—decided to revisit the decisions that had led to war and to look anew at the role he played. He enlisted the collaboration of the political scientist Gordon M. Goldstein, and together they explored what happened and what might have been. With Bundy’s death in 1996, that manuscript could not be completed, but Goldstein has built on their collaboration in an original and provocative work of presidential history that distills the essential lessons of America’s involvement in Vietnam. Drawing on Goldstein’s prodigious research as well as the interviews and analysis he conducted with Bundy, Lessons in Disaster is a historical tour de force on the uses and misuses of American power. And in our own era, in the wake of presidential decisions that propelled the United States into another war under dubious pretexts, these lessons offer instructive guidance that we must heed if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 The doves were right January 4, 2009
McGeorge Bundy, even in hindsight, is hard to forgive for his advice to President Johnson during the Vietnam buildup. That said, he has passed on and what we are left with is a glimpse of what the White House years were like when Bundy was around and advising both JFK and LBJ. The term "the best and the brightest" was applied to him and others but Bundy failed miserably. At least he began to come to terms with this before he died.
Author Gordon Goldstein has cobbled together a book not by Bundy but about him, as he indicates, and it is revealing. "Lessons in Disaster" is a two-part narrative, the first commenting on the Kennedy years and the latter, Lyndon Johnson. The second part is far more intriguing. JFK had shied away from using ground troops or air strikes but within a year or so after his assassination, things had changed dramatically for the worse. Bundy, in arguing for more military involvement in Vietnam, helped to create the quagmire. Yet, in reading Goldstein's book I was struck by how minor a player McGeorge Bundy seemed to be in all of this. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was certainly more in the forceful forefront of policy decisions and one gets the impression that this Harvard dean....Bundy....was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His inadequacies were only exacerbated by his own intimidation by President Johnson. He should never have been in the White House and he left too late. A nice continuing career in academia would have suited him better.
Goldstein, without saying so, gives us a reminder that although Korea should have been a model for future military involvement, Iraq has been the third disaster in modern times. The questions that weren't asked of LBJ and his advisors during Vietnam were subsequently not asked during George Bush's presidency with regard to Iraq. He begs the question about why our leaders continue to fall into traps that lead to disaster and for that reason alone, I highly recommend "Lessons in Disaster". Its merits are well-received.
 A Disappointment December 26, 2008
The author quotes Bundy many times in his belief that the very different personalities of the two presidents he served, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, made all the difference in the escalation of the war after JFK's death. There's certainly some truth in Bundy's analysis, but how convenient that it, at least partially, gets him off the hook for never confronting LBJ directly.
Goldstein's views are also confusing. He seems to agree with Bundy about the power of personality, yet writes that Kennedy lost control of his foreign policy team at the Bay of Pigs, gained control during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and lost control again when Diem was killed in Vietnam shortly before JFK's own death. If Goldstein is correct, how can he be so sure that Kennedy would have prevailed over the same team on adding massive ground troops in Vietnam.
I also found Goldstein's writing style to be a task to get through. He may go down in literary history for making both Johnson and Bundy seem like boring, unintertesting men. Hard to do.
One Of The Not So Brightest December 17, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Another good read of one of the Kennedy men who cannot come to terms with the Vietnam War and the American involvement,who first said no with Kennedy then yes with Johnson.
Highly readable and accessible December 3, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The reviews of this book by Henry Kissinger in Newsweek and by Richard Holbrooke in The New York Times give one a good sense for the seriousness of its ideas and its relevancy to current events. The real surprise about this book is how readable and accessible it is. The accolades "intellectually challenging" and "hard to put down" are rarely used to describe the same book, but the author manages both brilliantly. This is a highly satisfying read.
A must read... November 24, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Lessons in Disaster provides unique insights into Kennedy's decision making process and the possile outcome of our war effort if he had remained President.
Most importantly it provides valuable lessons to our President-elect as he sets a new direction for our country in global affairs.
This book is a must read as much for its historical value as for its relevance in today's world.
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