Vietnam: Now We Know

Readers of. General Westmoreland’s book, A Soldier Reports (Doubleday, 456 pp., $12.95), may approach it from two different angles. Some may see it as what it is on its face: a personal military memoir of the sort written by many distinguished military men—or politicians or diplomats, for that matter. Others may read the book. in search of the missing link in the American policy and strategy in Indochina—the missing link that might have spanned the, gap between means and ends’ between E for Effort and V for Victory.

The organization and style of the book favor the former group of readers, interested in an account of a generation of staggering military change as reflected in the life and experiences of one of the leading professionals of the period. Those who are looking for what went wrong in Vietnam will have harder going, but if they are prepared to study-the book rather than skim it, they will find some clues between the lines.

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About the Author

Norman B. Hannah

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Readers of. General Westmoreland’s book, A Soldier Reports (Doubleday, 456 pp., $12.95), may approach it from two different angles. Some may see it as what it is on its face: a personal military memoir of the sort written by many distinguished military men—or politicians or diplomats, for that matter. Others may read the book. in search of the missing link in the American policy and strategy in Indochina—the missing link that might have spanned the, gap between means and ends’ between E for Effort and V for Victory.

The organization and style of the book favor the former group of readers, interested in an account of a generation of staggering military change as reflected in the life and experiences of one of the leading professionals of the period. Those who are looking for what went wrong in Vietnam will have harder going, but if they are prepared to study-the book rather than skim it, they will find some clues between the lines.