Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of America's Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam

Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1989. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 24 cm. 438 pages. Illustrations. Map. Endpaper maps. Appendices. Chronology. Glossary. Index. Some creasing to DJ edges. William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 - April 27, 1996) spent a career in intelligence for the United States, culminating in serving as the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976. During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strategic Services. After the war he joined the Central Intelligence Agency. During the Vietnam War, Colby served as chief of station in Saigon, chief of the CIA's Far East Division, and head of the Civil Operations and Rural Development effort He oversaw the Phoenix Program. As Director of Central Intelligence, under intense pressure from the United States Congress and the media, adopted a policy of relative openness about U.S. intelligence activities to the Senate Church Committee and House Pike Committee. The former Director of the CIA, who was involved in the Vietnam War for many of its 16 years. Colby argued that the U.S.-RVN counterinsurgency campaign in Vietnam had succeeded by the early 1970s and that South Vietnam could have survived had the U.S. continued to provide support after the Paris Accords. Though the topic remains open and controversial, some recent scholarship, including by Lewis "Bob" Sorley, supports Colby's arguments.