Papers on the War

I actually ordered this book, "Papers on the War", by mistake, but I do not regret it. I intended to order Ellsberg's "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers". I recommend to get the two books together. "Papers on the War" is sort of an executive summary of the most important and representative of the 7000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, which is of course the Top Secret report on the history of the Vietnam Wars from 1945 - 1968, commissioned by Robert S. McNamara. "Secrets: A Memoir..." reads like a history book and a political thriller, and traces Mr. Ellsberg's very personal journey from being a US Marine, to working for the Rand Corporation privately researching the Vietnam situation for the Defense Department, and then actually working for various government officials who reported directly to the President on Vietnam. He recreates his horror at concluding how his superiors (and he himself) knew the futility of the war effort, yet did not know how to extricate our country from the war, and continuously lied to the American people. Becoming a voice for the anti-war movement, he takes us through the 1968 and 1972 presidential elections, Watergate and the fall of Nixon. "Secrets: A Memoir..." is a primer on how power corrupts. It is also an important history of what may be the most important era in modern US history. Lessons abound for today. "Papers on the War" is a great companion book, and can be used as reference and footnotes to the "Secret..."

a good book. read it and the pentagon papers also.

I was in the lottery during the war. My birth date came up very late. I knew I would not have to go, but I heard the groans and 'oh my gods' from the others who were not so lucky. We had National guard troops on our campus. One person lost a leg to a bayonet -- a minor wound to compared to those who went and came back as paraplegics or blind; the lucky ones were killed outright. Elsberg is our hero for telling the truth. That's all he did. He told the truth. In Albuquerque, when I voted in the Nixon election I raced home on my bicycle invigorated by having written in "Daniel Elsberg" on a brown strip of paper that scrolled from the voting machine. He was my candidate for President . Later I turned on the TV and waited for my vote to be announced -- and 1 vote for Daniel Elsberg. It wasn't. I didn't buy this book on amazon I bought it years before the internet or Amazon was even dreamed of. It still has a hallowed place on my book shelf and in my heart.

I read this book a long time ago, and it impressed me greatly. By providing a series of insights into American approaches to a conflict with enemies of the United States who happened to be foreign, if the press can be believed, and by setting himself up as someone who wished to examine the issue of individual guilt in this context, the author managed to transform himself from a secret server of the system to the most famous domestic enemy of official secrecy in matters relating to national security. Those people who know the identities of the President and Secretary of Defence in November, 1965, might easily guess which one of them sent the other a secret memo expressing the fear that the odds were about even that the future could be worse. If this doesn't make any sense to you, you might gain something from reading this book.

I have not completed the book yet, but a paints a good picture of the decisions made by US officials relating to the Vietnam war. A lot of facts to take in. You need a few good hours to sit down and read. Not because it is difficult, but because level of details surrounding the decisions made by US officials. Update 18/03/2018: I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know about the decision making by the US in relation to the Vietnam War.

He was the start of the rot. Any other country would have locked this man away in prison for a life time.