Argument Without End:; In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy

New York: Public Affairs, 1999. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxiii, [5], 479, [5 pages. Illustration. Maps. Appendices. Notes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Minor edge soiling. Signed by all three authors on fep! Also written with Thomas J. Biersteker and Col. Herbert Y. Schandler. Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 - July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, during which time he played a major role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Following that, he served as President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis. McNamara consolidated intelligence and logistics functions of the Pentagon into two centralized agencies: the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Supply Agency. Prior to his public service, McNamara was one of the "Whiz Kids" who helped rebuild Ford Motor Company after World War II and briefly served as Ford's President before becoming Secretary of Defense. A group of advisors he brought to the Pentagon inherited the "Whiz Kids" moniker. McNamara remains the longest serving Secretary of Defense, having remained in office over seven years. Over a period of four years, in six unprecedented meetings held in Hanoi and a seventh meeting in Italy, McNamara, his colleagues in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and America's top Vietnam and military scholars finally met with their Vietnamese counterparts. Did the Vietnam War have to happen? And why couldn't it have ended earlier? These are among the questions that Robert McNamara and his collaborators ask in "Argument Without End, " a book that will stand as a major contribution to what we know about the Vietnam War. Drawing on a series of meetings that brought together, for the first time ever, senior American and Vietnamese officials who had served during the war, the book looks at the many instances in which one side, or both, made crucial mistakes that led to the war and its duration. Using Vietnamese and Chinese documents, many never before made public, McNamara reveals both American and Vietnamese blunders, and points out ways in which such mistakes can be avoided in the future. He also shows conclusively that war could not be won militarily by the United States.McNamara's last book on Vietnam was one of the most controversial books ever published in this country. This book will reignite the passionate debate about the war, about McNamara, and about the lessons we can take away from the tragedy.