Dereliction of Duty by H R Mcmaster

Dereliction of Duty by H R Mcmaster

"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C."  --H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion)

Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.

A page-turning narrative, Dereliction Of Duty focuses on a fascinating cast of characters: President Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and other top aides who deliberately deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Congress and the American public.

McMaster's only book, Dereliction of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute. He is also a Freeman Spogli Institute Susan and Bernard Liautaud Fellow and a Lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Management. He is the chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Military and Political Power's advisory board, as well as the Hudson Institute's Japan Chair. H.R. is a native of Philadelphia. In 1984, he graduated from the United States Military Academy.

He was a member of the United States military. For 34 years, he served in the army and retired as a lieutenant general in 2018. While serving as the president's twenty-sixth assistant for national security matters, he remained on active duty. He earned his PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught history at West Point.