Lewis Sorley And A Better War

October 7, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Afghanistan, Book Review, Richard Nixon, Vietnam 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the White House and the Pentagon are circulating literature to bolster their respective arguments over the debate in Afghanistan.

For the White House, it’s Gordon Goldstein’s Lessons in Disaster (now in President Obama’s hands), which examines Johnson National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy’s  “disavowal” of his previous hawkish stance on the Vietnam War.

For the Pentagon, it’s Lewis “Bob” Sorley’s A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam.

Dr. Sorley — a Vietnam war veteran — argues that with a new counter-insurgency strategy under the leadership of the wunderkind General Creighton Abrams  — who as John Taylor recounts here was Petraeus-like in making momentous gains in Vietnam working under the political cover of President Nixon — the war began to turn.

It wasn’t until the politicians in Congress pulled the rug from underneath General Abrams that Vietnam was effectively lost to the North.

One year ago, Dr. Sorley paid a visit to the Nixon Library, where he gave a lecture on the history and origins of the West Point honor code from his latest book Honor Bright.

Sorely also saved some time for a TNN TV interview on the new battles our military faces, in which he discussed A Better War and the lessons learned from Vietnam:

Update, 11:11 am (pst): The Wall Street Journal has an excerpt of The Better War here.

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