The Outlaw Sea or Dereliction of Duty

The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos and Crime

Author: William Langewiesch

and/or stickers showing their discounted price. More about bargain books

Table of Contents:

1	An Ocean World	3
2	The Wave Makers	35
3	To the Ramparts	85
4	On a Captive Sea	101
5	The Ocean's Way	127
6	On the Beach	197

Go to: A Brilliant Solution or Memoirs

Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

Author: 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 new 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 recently released transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. It also 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.

Dereliction Of Duty covers the story in strong narrative fashion, focusing 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.

Sure to generate controversy, Dereliction Of Duty is an explosive and authoritative new look at the controversy concerning the United States involvement in Vietnam.

Ronald Spector

What gives 'Dereliction of Duty' its special value . . . is McMaster's comprehensive, balanced and relentless exploration of the specific role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . . As a result, he is able to explode some longstanding myths about the role of the Chiefs. According to the most popular of these, the Joint Chiefs always knew what was needed to win in Vietnam but were consistently ignored or circumvented by Johnson, Robert S. McNamara and their associates. McMaster shows that the President and his civilian advisers did indeed ignore the Joint Chiefs whenever it suited them, but he also demonstrates that the Chiefs were willing, or at least silent, accomplices in this process. -Ronald Spector - The New York Times Book Review:

Paul F. Braim

This book is an excellent addition to the growing record of inadequacies in senior leadership during that time of America's travail. McMaster's directcharge: Dereliction of duty by LBJ and his intimate advisors, and culpabilityby senior military leaders, in their commitment of our nation's most scarce and precious resource--our young soldiers--into a war under restrictions that produced high casualties and ultimate defeat for the United States. This provocative book brings the accused, alive and dead, before the bar of public justice. This reviewer's verdict: Guilty as charged! - Paul F. Braim - Parameters (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.)

The Philadelphia Inquirer - Robert Anderson

An impressive study thorough in its research and summary in its judgments. [McMaster] doesn't shy from bold interpretation, or the damning insight, and his analysis, a model of clarity and economy, puts civil-military relations during the Vietnam war in an eerie, indeed Byzantine light.

Donald Kagan

An outstanding example of historical research, interpretation, scholarship, and fair-minded analysis.

Eliot Cohen

Four star generals do not normally consult the writings of junior field grade officers for advice about career decisions. But it was widely reported that when Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald Fogelman decided to resign in 1997, he did so at least in part on the basis of a careful reading of H. R. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty. . . . "McMaster has written a scathing indictment of America's civilian and military leadership during the early phases of the Vietnam war, and he speaks. . . with unique moral authority. . . . McMaster earned his moral authority under fire. . . . By virtue of his actions [in the Gulf War], McMaster became a hero. . . . "[McMaster] speaks with unusual authority as a symbol of the confident young veterans of the Gulf. His call to his leaders to hold themselves to high standards of professional integrity is, therefore, an important one. No wonder, then, that General Fogelman, himself an acute student of history, would pay close attention to work that on nearly every page excoriates his predecessors for their unwillingness to speak and act as their positions required. . . . "Recently, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry Shelton, invited Major McMaster to lecture to the most senior generals in the American military about his book.

New York Times Book Review - Ronald Spector

What gives Dereliction of Duty its special value is. . . McMaster's comprehensive, balanced and relentless exploration of the specific role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . . a devastating indictment of Johnson and his principal civilian and military advisers.

Paul Fussell

A stunning book:eloquent and highly effective. The word noble would not be going too far.

Stanley Karnow

Carefully researched and vividly narrated, H. R. McMaster's book adds a new and disturbing dimension to an understanding of the decisions that propelled us into the Vietnam war. It should be read by anyone interested in the origins of one of the great tragedies in American history.

Los Angeles Times Book Review - Brian VanDeMark

Thoroughly researched, clearly written and forcefully argued.

The Washington Monthly - Peter Arnett

A book to boggle your mind with new revelations of ineptness, duplicity, and arrogance amongst the senior-most officials of the United States. . . . McMaster pastes all the puzzle pieces together to reveal a plot Shakespearean in its proportions . . . McMaster's scholarship and presentation is exemplary in Dereliction of Duty. . . The author's arguments are coherent and convincing and important to the historical record.

Tom Clancy

A fabulous piece of scholarship. This book will open a whole new chapter in our study of Vietnam.

Newsweek

Lately [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General] Shelton has been closely reading a book called Dereliction of Duty. Its thesis:that the Joint Chiefs of Staff lost the Vietnam War by failing to stand up to civilian leadership.

San Francisco Chronicle

Brilliant. . . a penetrating analysis.

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Ed Offley

McMaster's book has drawn high praise from experts. . His dogged research unearthed thousands of pages of material denied other historians and writers.

Washington Post Book World - Arnold R. Isaacs

Well-written and full of enlightening new details, Dereliction of Duty adds significantly to the historical record of a great national failure.

Harold G. Moore

Superbly researched, play-by-play, riveting inside story of the genesis of the American War in Vietnam. Assorted firepower explodes on every page.

Joseph L. Galloway

Here's everything you didn't read in Robert S. McNamara's book. Vietnam did not simply happen; it was not an accidental Cold War collision that killed 58, 000 Americans and a million Vietnamese. Men of power and responsibility caused that disastrous war and left their fingerprints all over it'and here are their names and what they did and said and decided in secret. McMaster has mined newly declassified records and, in these pages, sheds fresh light and understanding on how the best and the brightest, shielded by a bodyguard of lies and the words top secret, maneuvered and manipulated our country down the road to war and bitter defeat.

Frederick Franks

A tough, straightforward and hard hitting account of early decisions that set the course for the U. S. war in Vietnam. H. R. McMaster's book is vital in understanding those times and those critical decisions.

Washington Times - Mackubin Thomas Owens

Most explosive. [a] devastating reassessment of the historical records. . Major McMaster deserves praise for his original research and riveting account. After Dereliction of Duty, the Vietnam War will never look quite the same. It is indeed a seminal work.

Edward M. Coffman

H. R. McMaster's new Dereliction of Duty stands out as a particularly well-documented, searing indictment of the civilian and military leadership. This is the clearest and most cogent argument as to the basic causes of the disaster.

Harry G. Summers

Invaluable. . . a most readable, yet meticulously documented history.

Washington Monthly - Peter Arnett

A book to boggle your mind with new revelations of ineptness, duplicity, and arrogance amongst the senior—most officials of the United States….McMaster pastes all the puzzle pieces together to reveal a plot Shakespearean in its proportion….McMaster's scholarship and presentation is exemplary in Dereliction of Duty….The author's arguments are coherent and convincing and important to the historical record.

Washington Post Book World - Arnold R. Isaacs

Well—written and full of enlightening new details, Dereliction of Duty adds significantly to the historical record of a great national failure.

Kirkus Reviews

An intriguing analysis that challenges the view that Cold War anticommunism was primarily responsible for American military intervention in Vietnam.

In his first book, McMaster, a US Army major and Persian Gulf war veteran, and a historian who has taught at West Point, zeroes in on the actions of Lyndon Johnson and his top advisers from the time LBJ became president in November 1963 to the July 1965 decision to escalate the war drastically. The author makes a convincing case that domestic political considerations were behind the development of the failed strategy of graduated military pressure. The actions of Johnson, his top civilian advisers, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) were, moreover, characterized by "arrogance, weakness [and] lying in the pursuit of self interest." President Johnson heads McMaster's culpability list, which also includes Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, JCS head and US ambassador to South Vietnam Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Taylor's JCS successor, Gen. Earle Wheeler, and top advisers William and McGeorge Bundy. McMaster's touchstone is the unchallenged fact that Johnson wanted to fight the war on poverty, not the war in Vietnam. McMaster interprets virtually all of LBJ's actions as chief executive in that light. From November 1963 to November 1964 Johnson's overarching goal was to win the presidential election. After that, his main concern was enacting his Great Society programs. The fact that Johnson made Vietnam policy based on domestic-policy implications, McMaster believes, was a recipe for disaster in Vietnam. David Halberstam promulgated similar arguments in The Best and the Brightest (1972). McMaster, using newly released transcripts and other primary source material, pays more attention to the JCS's role. Unsparing in his analysis of the chiefs, McMaster takes them severely to task for their "failure" to provide LBJ with "their best advice."

A relentless, stinging indictment of the usual Johnson administration Vietnam War suspects.

What People Are Saying

Ronald Spector
What gives Dereliction of Duty its special value is...McMaster's comprehensive, balanced and relentless exploration of the specific role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...a devastating indictment of Johnson and his principal civilian and military advisers.

Stanley Karnow
Carefully researched and vividly narrated, H.R. McMaster's book adds a new and disturbing dimension to an understanding of the decisions that propelled us into the Vietnam war. It should be read by anyone interested in the origins of one of the great tragedies in American history.

Peter Arnett
A book to boggle your mind with new revelations of ineptness, duplicity, and arrogance amongst the senior-most officials of the United States....McMaster pastes all the puzzle pieces together to reveal a plot Shakespearean in its proportions ...McMaster's scholarship and presentation is exemplary in Dereliction of Duty...The author's arguments are coherent and convincing and important to the historical record.

Harold G. Moore
Superbly researched, play—by—play, riveting inside story of the genesis of the American War in Vietnam. Assorted firepower explodes on every page.
—(Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, U.S. Army (Retired), coauthor of the New York Times best seller We Were Soldiers Once…And Young)

Stanley Karnow
Carefully researched and vividly narrated, H.R. McMaster's book adds a new and disturbing dimension to an understanding of the decisions that propelled us into the Vietnam War. It should be read by anyone interested in the origins of one of the great tragedies in American history.
—(Stanley Karnow, Pulitzer Prize—winning author of Vietnam: A History)

Donald Kagan
An outstanding example of historical research, interpretation, scholarship, and fair—minded analysis.
—(Donald Kagan, Bass Professor of History, Classics and Western Civilization, Yale University, and author of On the Origins of War)

Paul Fussell
Paul Fussell, author of The Great War and Modern Memory
A stunning book: eloquent and highly effective. The word noble would not be going too far.