When I was in high school, I found books by Guenter Lewy, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger (I’m thinking of White House Years and Years of Upheaval) helpful in providing an intelligent conservative perspective. A 1985 article by John P. Roche for NR–called, I believe, “The Strange Death of Liberal Anti-Communism”–was also worthwhile. The Irony of Vietnam, by Leslie Gelb and Richard Betts, was not a “conservative book” but was quite interesting. If I were working now on the paper that got me reading those books then, I would probably add Michael Lind and H. R. McMaster to the list.