Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Average customer rating:

History behind the Pentagon Papers

Rare History

book

how and why our government lies to us

An insider's account of the abuse of power of consecutive presidents and their administrations

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Military & Spies | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Military | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | Vietnam | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Pentagon Papers

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

Wild Man : The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg

The Best and the Brightest

ASIN: 0142003425
Release Date: 2003-09-30

Book Description

In 1971 former Cold War hard-liner Daniel Ellsberg made history by releasing the Pentagon Papers-a 7,000-page top-secret study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam-to the New York Times and Washington Post. The document set in motion a chain of events that ended not only the Nixon presidency but the Vietnam War. In this remarkable memoir, Ellsberg describes in dramatic detail the two years he spent in Vietnam as a U.S. State Department observer, and how he came to risk his career and freedom to expose the deceptions and delusions that shaped three decades of American foreign policy. The story of one man's exploration of conscience, Secrets is also a portrait of America at a perilous crossroad.

Customer Reviews:

History behind the Pentagon Papers.......2007-09-03

This provides Ellsberg's history behind his release of the Pentagon Papers. Included is (obviously) his motivation and reasoning behind why he thought they had to be released to the press. In addition, there is a discussion of his the papers themselves but, ironically, the weakness of the book was not enough discussion/analysis of the papers and the conclusions reached therein.

Rare History.......2007-07-23

Ellsberg is a driven man--driven toward solving puzzles and righting that which is wrong. The intensity of his intellect and the breadth of his insider experience would have made Daniel Ellsberg an amazing historian of the Vietnam War even if he hadn't become an anti-war activist. The fact that he had--in the end--studied both sides, and that eventually he had access not only to the Pentagon Papers but also the Nixon Whitehouse tapes allowed him to explain the war and its perpetrators with a rare combination of vividness and authority.

Judging from what is written in today's newspapers, the patterns Ellsberg describes in Secrets are repeating themselves in the Iraq War. _Secrets_ deserves to be widely read, as a lesson in courage, as history, and as a warning to those of us who might be tempted to sit back and trust unquestioningly those who would lead us into war then resist bringing us back out.

book.......2007-01-19

Just got it today, but know that my son will enjoy reading it. He loves history and asked for this book specifically.

how and why our government lies to us.......2007-01-18

A year into the Iraqi war, an increasing number of people are comparing the debacle to the quagmire that was Vietnam. In one interview about the American torture of Iraqi prisoners, even Secretary of State Colin Powell made an unsolicited comparison with the Mai Lai massacre. Most people now acknowledge that the Bush administration has been less than candid about not only the war in Iraq but also its policies and decisions before and after the 9/11 attacks. Enter Daniel Ellsberg.

In this memoir Ellsberg documents how five successive presidential administrations (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) systematically lied to the American people and to congress about the Vietnam war. His story is especially compelling because (similar to John Kerry in at least this regard), he served patriotically in Vietnam, only to have that experience convince him how terribly wrong his own government was about the war. As a Marine company commander in Vietnam, Ellsberg was an enthusiastic supporter of the war. But two years of wading through swampy jungles, and extended study of classified documents, convinced him that government rhetoric and empirical realities were two very different things. Ellsberg came home and became an outspoken critic of the war, and in an aggressive effort to stop the war he leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers to congress and then to the media, 7,000 pages in 47 volumes of top secret documents.

The lesson? Citizens would be naïve to believe all that its government says or to support all that it does. Christians, especially, believe that Caesar is not God. This was a radical notion in the early centuries of the faith, for in the Roman Empire Caesar was god, and believers paid dearly for it with two centuries of martyrdom. In fact, as Bernard Lewis has observed, it is to Christianity that we owe the novel idea of a distinctly secular state, as opposed to theocracies such as ancient Israel or modern Iran (or emerging Iraq?). If the state is secular and not sacred, if Caesar is not God, if our recent governments have shown their near pathological propensity to lie about matters large and small, and if most all governments must as a practical necessity use brutal and coercive powers to protect national interests and deliberate neglect of the weak where there is no national interest (Rwandan genocide), then it might deserve our allegiance, yes, but also our loyal opposition.

An insider's account of the abuse of power of consecutive presidents and their administrations.......2006-08-13

After finishing this book, I think the one thing that I'm left awestruck by is how little we as a country have learned in the intervening years. Daniel Ellsberg's detailed, yet gripping account of how he went from an anti-communist cold-warrior to an anti-Vietman war protestor and activist is, at times draining, at others infuriating, and yet always thoroughly engrossing.

He starts the book detailing how, as a political analyst he was eventually allowed access to some of the most highly classified documentation the goverment has, including the 7000 page collection known as the Pentagon Papers. A highly detailed look at the behind the scenes machinations that led the U.S. to go from an advisory role to the French in Vietnam, to actively participating in and continued escalation of the conflict. Those documents allowed him to see exactly how far from the truth official statements from the various administrations to the public and Congress were, even to the point of outright lying about getting out of Vietnam when they were in fact escalating involvement in the war.

Mr. Ellsberg goes on to inform the reader how his access to this information led him to eventually denounce the war as criminal, how he attempted to help stop it through "proper channels", which led to nowhere, and eventually how he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers to the press, knowing full well the toll that it would likely take on his friends and family. Although, this singular act of courage wasn't enough to stop the war in and of itself, it was a stepping stone to its end.

What struck me most as I was reading, was the incredible similarity to events going on now, right down to almost vertabum administration statements made to the public. At that time, administration officials would question the patriotism of those who didn't support the war. They called papers that printed leaked classified information, and the leakers themselves, criminal and claimed that to do so was harmful to national security. There are numerous other examples, but I encourage you to read the book for yourself. If for no other reason than to learn how easily it is for our elected officials to lie to us, and get away with it.

I wish that after reading this book I could say that we've moved past all of this, that our country has learned and it could never happen again. However, I think the similarities between this dark time in our history and the Iraq war has gone a long way to proving that isn't the case.

Read this book. Even ignoring my view of the parallels to the Iraq war, this is a highly gripping and educational look at the history and policies that led to our involvement in the Vietnam war. It's a viewpoint that you will never see in any dry classroom textbook and I think that everyone needs to learn just how humanly fallible our elected officials can be.

Wild Man : The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg

Average customer rating:

Ellsberg was NEVER a glory grabber
Fascinating Biography On A Controversial Anti-War Activist!
Half a life. The personal half.
I'm overly fond of the subject matter.
An anti-hero in anti-heroic times.

Wild Man : The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg
Tom Wells
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
The Best and the Brightest
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

ASIN: 0312177194

Amazon.com

No wonder Daniel Ellsberg withdrew from participation in this biography. Although the author declares himself "sympathetic politically" to the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, Tom Wells bluntly depicts a very flawed personality. Almost from his birth in 1931, according to Wells, Ellsberg was shaped by his domineering mother into a brilliant narcissist, arrogant about his unquestionable intellectual gifts but so unfocused that he never really fulfilled his early promise. At the time he passed along the top-secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam, which revealed that the government had frequently misled its citizens about a war many of its own experts felt could not be won, Ellsberg was certainly and commendably convinced that the truth must be told. But he was also frustrated by his failure to achieve the prominence he felt he deserved at the RAND Institute think tank and eager for public recognition. Wells traces the trajectory of Ellsberg's life fairly but unsparingly, drawing on the many interviews Ellsberg gave him before their break in 1995 and extensive (often directly contradictory) comments by his friends and colleagues to portray someone who habitually exaggerated his importance and overstated his role in various projects. (Wells concludes, for example, that Ellsberg's claim that he prompted Robert McNamara to order the Pentagon Papers study "is almost certainly untrue.") It's not a pretty picture, and the author doesn't gloss over Ellsberg's compulsive womanizing or his carelessness about security classifications. Nonetheless, he also paints a nuanced portrait of a man who began his career as a convinced cold-war hawk but was prompted by both research and his firsthand observations to conclude that the Vietnam War was a tragic mistake. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

In March 1971, Daniel Ellsberg gave The New York Times access to a classified government report revealing the secret history of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg, a former Vietnam Marine, said he violated national security to protest an illegal war. The release of the Pentagon Papers exploded in controversy. Ellsberg was indicted for espionage; charges were dropped when it was revealed that Nixon operatives burglarized the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist in order to discredit him. Wild Man is the first biography of the man at center stage in one of the most remarkable periods in American history. What drove this cold war intellectual to break the law? A richly detailed tale of the times, this indelible portrait of the hawk-turned-dove who tried single-handedly to end the war will stand as one of the great American stories.

Customer Reviews:

Ellsberg was NEVER a glory grabber.......2005-08-10

Wells(W) has written a biography that places an undo emphasis on certain minor aspects of Ellsberg's life,including unwarranted moral judgments that appear to be hypocritical, while completely ignoring certain major accomplishments of Ellsberg for which he has never received his just acclaim(and has never sought acclaim)First,W appears to be fixated on the fact that Ellsberg had sexual relationships with a number of different women.For just a few examples,George Washington,Benjamin Franklin,Thomas Jefferson,Napoleon,Douglas MacArthur,Dwight D.Eisenhower,and Martin Luther King also had sexual relationships with a number of different women.The emphasis that W places on this fact is incredibly overblown.Am I supposed to stop reading J M Keynes's General Theory and A Treatise on Probability because Keynes's sexual orientation before 1922 was primarily Gay?The conclusion I draw is that W either sought to embarrass Ellsberg and/or wanted to add irrelevant material that might sell more copies of his book.Second,the discussions of Ellsberg's contributions to decision making do not recognize that Ellsberg is the Father of modern decision theory.It is a practical certainty that had Ellsberg's 1962 dissertation been published in the 1960's, instead of in 2001,he would have already received a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.Chapter 7 of"Risk,Ambiguity,and Decision"(2001;Garland Publishing Com.)supplies a complete modern decision theoretic foundation for Keynes's major General Theory analysis that uncertainty(Ellsberg's ambiguity)is THE cause of involuntary unemployment and insufficient long run investment.The problem here is that Ellsberg has remained far too quite for over 40 years on what he accomplished.One can only hope that Ellsberg will decide to "toot his own horn" a lot more vigorously in the future.Any reader of W's book should automatically buy a copy of Ellsberg's "Secrets" book if one desires an accurate biography that concentrates on the important things.

Fascinating Biography On A Controversial Anti-War Activist!.......2003-05-24

While I found this absorbing and thoughtfully written biography of Vietnam anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg to be a bit overblown and pretentious at times, it is a masterfully written exploration of a complex and puzzling man, and provides the reader with a far-reaching biographical portrait that both neatly complements as well as providing a foil for Ellsberg's own recent autobiographical efforts in the best-selling work "Secrets". While "Secrets" concentrates first and foremost on the period of his life leading up to and including the debacle over the illicit release of the top-secret Pentagon papers to the press, Well's biography, "Wild Man" gives us a much more fully developed, balanced, and for the most part more objective look at the mercurial, narcissistic, and stunningly brilliant Ellsberg's life.

Ellsberg's direction in life was aggressively forged in the crucible of his aggressive and domineering mother's ambitions for him, such that he rose by dint of ability and hard effort to the heights of academic success early, graduating with a PhD in Economics from Harvard in the pre-Vietnam war era. Yet Ellsberg often did the unexpected, especially given his pedigree as an ambitious young Jewish-American intellectual; after college he volunteered for the Marine Corps, and served as an officer before going on to graduate school. After graduating from Harvard, he soon found himself recruited for the Rand Corporation, an elite Defense-Department funded think-tank and private preserve for intellectuals useful for the DOD bureaucracy. Sure enough, Ellsberg's controversial ideas and thoughtful repose gained him notice and a post within the government working for a highly placed Pentagon undersecretary.

This position placed him in the catbird seat in terms of his access to the opening sequences and related bureaucratic responses to the expanding conflict in Vietnam. Even as he lent his support to the Pentagon, Ellsberg became concerned about the use of body counts and other quantitative measures being employed as key indicators of our military situation and progress being made. Criticisms of the methodology fell on deaf ears however, and Ellsberg found himself more isolated and less influential than he had hoped he would be. Instead, he argued for a long and detailed survey "on the ground" in Vietnam, which he would volunteer to accomplish for himself, and which he felt confident would give a better, more accurate and realistic appraisal of American forces in the region. Over a eighteen month period, Ellsberg became convinced the war was being conducted all wrong, that the employment of such metrics as body counts, bomb tonnage, and areas secured were catastrophically misleading at best and profoundly delusional at worst.

The rest, as they say, was history, and it is useful to have both Ellsberg's recollections as well as those of an independent biographer in detailing just how and why all that cam e to transpire did so, for the devil is in the details of the historical record. At the same time, I was a bit offended by Well's recurring tale-spinning in terms of providing the reader with salacious material about Ellsberg's peripatetic and admittedly insistent womanizing. While there is no doubt that Ellsberg is no saint, I still fail to see why Wells felt it was so important to stress Ellsberg's ego excesses, his romantic escapades, or his apparent inability to stay the course on any particular intellectual path long enough to make a career of it has to do with his heart-wrenching decision to expose himself to a possible life behind bars in order to provide the American people with what he felt was critical information they had a right to know. Still, this is fascinating material, and any self-respecting sidewalk psychoanalyst like you and I are likely to enjoy a lot of his thoughtful ruminations about Ellsberg even as we know they are largely irrelevant to what happened and why. This is a worthwhile if somewhat flawed book. Enjoy!

Half a life. The personal half........2002-09-01

Daniel Ellsberg's profession at RAND in Santa Monica was the creation of mathematical models of conflict situations - wars, face-offs, threats of war, crises - the daily business of the cold war. He is said to have done this work brilliantly. He was expert at game theory.

He was unusual, probably unique among defense theorists, in that he stood up from his computer terminal, turned aside from his theoretical models of the war and went to war himself, personally, with a rifle. It comes through that Ellsberg was a bit of an enthusiast -- a war lover. Strangely, the Viet Nam chapters are the only chapters in the book where the character and the story really come alive.

But Ellsberg returned from Viet Nam depressed and disgusted. He ultimately copied and released to the press The Pentagon Papers, the classified historical account of US policy in Viet Nam.

Very few people actually read the Pentagon Papers. Tom Wicker of the New York Times read into it and was struck and evidently quite shocked by the idea that a war could be discussed as though it were a rational game. He did not know, and most people still don't know, the extent to which US cold war policy, our grand strategy, had been subsumed into John von Neumann's mathematical descriptions of parlour games.

Daniel Ellsberg's biography should have had something to say about his profession, about game theory, about the awkward, perhaps ridiculous overlay of a mathematical theory on a shooting war in the jungle. Ellsberg was deeply inside this business, a RAND superstar, and in the end he became disillusioned and quite talkative about it.

The author of this biography completely missed this whole astonishing backstory. He simply left out Ellsberg's professional life, his strange and remarkable line of work as a war gamer.

What we have here instead is a relentlessly hostile, tut-tut-tutting 604-page description of Ellsberg's personal life: his childhood, his hard pushing mom, his social activities, his water cooler conversations, and his dates and his nights. What are we supposed to do with this kind of information?

If you are still wondering why we were in Viet Nam, and who isn't, there exist some much better and livelier books to read: A great introduction to the RAND era and story is "The Wizards of Armageddon," by Kaplan. It was recently re-published in paperback. Prisoner's Dilemma by Poundstone is an excellent book on Von Neumann and the Game Theory. Another book on the subject is, of course, "The Pentagon Papers." Ellsberg's autobiography, which is soon to be published, may also prove helpful.

This biography, "Wild Man" does contain, by the way, some interesting historical facts. For example, the author observes that RAND maintained a French colonial villa in Saigon. We are left to wonder what the heck went on in there - that is, what their game was. The author doesn't seem to have a clue that it mattered.

I'm overly fond of the subject matter........2002-06-29

Having to practice the piano as a kid seems to me such a great start for the life of an intellectual, that even the beginning of this book made sense to me. I can relate to most of the character features of this book in an intellectual way, also. It is reported on page 573 that "Ellsberg was invited by undergraduates to teach a student-sponsored course on `nuclear weapons and foreign policy'at Stanford in 1979." As a lesson in reality, student interest dwindled rapidly when students discovered "that Ellsberg `relied too much on his memory of what he personally was involved in. . . . It may not have been well organized." More in line with the way everybody is thinking about these things, Harvard Medical School arranged for Ellsberg to teach a course under a center John Mack "had set up called the Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age." (p. 573). This approaches the field of philosophy in allowing the students to think that they are directly engaging in a study of the thoughts of their professor.

I have owned WILD MAN / THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL ELLSBERG for a year, and appreciated the information about his Harvard years the most. He certainly had more fun at Harvard than I ever had. Photograph number 5, showing "Daniel and Carol Ellsberg holding the purloined ibis at Harvard" shows how readily the students who wrote the "Crimson" could make the news in their paper whatever they wanted it to be, including his line, "It is absurd to maintain that a copper bird could have arranged a series of audiences with notables, or eluded pursuers unaided." (p. 89). Ultimately, news in this country became about what the students at Harvard thought it was. I'm afraid the failure which WILD MAN frequently expresses about the life of Daniel Ellsberg relate to the character of our political system as much as to anything that Daniel Ellsberg might have done.

For a few months, I have been reading SAKHAROV / A BIOGRAPHY by Richard Lourie, and I noticed that Daniel Ellsberg was mentioned on page 360 of that book, as someone that Sakharov saw after seven years in which he had seen no one. Sakharov is not mentioned in WILD MAN, not even in the list of people who Tom Wells would give more credit to than Daniel Ellsberg for accomplishing something in the control of nuclear weapons. Politically, it was always felt that Daniel Ellsberg's contributions were "not going to be any kind of dynamite," (p. 351), but Ellsberg himself seemed "nervous and worried. . . . He spoke fast and made jerky movements. He seemed to be a harried man." (p. 351). Sakharov had the advantage of dealing with a political system which could see the need for a change, when he could deal with a leader, Gorbachev, who sincerely needed to find ways to change things for the better. Daniel Ellsberg is already in a system in which change is such a constant that almost anyone in the system could be the anonymous source who told Tom Wells, "I mean, he doesn't even begin to pretend to be interested in me anymore." (p. 604).

An anti-hero in anti-heroic times........2001-08-23

Having been interviewed for this book I can testify to the trueness of the part that dealt with the overlap between Dan Ellsberg and myself. Tom Wells gives an absolutely remarkable picture of that time, the time I knew Ellsberg. Presumably Wells's skill at interweaving the stories given by the many people he interviewed are accurate throughout the book. Fascinating book. I couldn't put it down. Interesting to see this picture of the muddle and deceit of our government about that war. I recommend the book to those too young to remember some of Ellsberg's times as well as to those of us who are old enough to remember part of the history of his times. Wells has done a terrific job.

Average customer rating:

Robert McNamara's Gift to the World

The Pentagon Papers
George C Herring
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Strategy | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
The Best and the Brightest
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 with Poster
Inside the Pentagon Papers (Modern War Studies)

ASIN: 007028380X

Book Description

This book provides a brief and manageable collection of the most important documents on U.S. policymaking in the Vietnam War between 1950 and 1968. Edited by the foremost Vietnam historian, this supplementary text can be used in conjunction with any history of the Vietnam war--Herring's own America's Longest War, for example.

Customer Reviews:

Robert McNamara's Gift to the World.......2000-01-08

Prepare to have your trust in government shattered. It illustrates the "credibility gap" during the Vietnam War, i.e., the gap between what Johnson and Kennedy were saying to the public and what was actually happening in Vietnam. The administrations constantly lie to the American public on our progress in the war. What's most interesting is reading these documents alongside speeches made to the public during this time by McNamara and Johnson. It's quite startling. Read this book.

Average customer rating:

Pentagon Papers
New York Times
Manufacturer: Corgi Childrens
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Southeast Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
The Best and the Brightest
Inside the Pentagon Papers (Modern War Studies)
The Pentagon Papers
In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

ASIN: 0552649171

Inside the Pentagon Papers (Modern War Studies)

Average customer rating:

Inside the Pentagon Papers (Modern War Studies)

Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Conspiracy Theories | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Federal Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Criminal Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

The Pentagon Papers
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
The Day the Presses Stopped: A History of the Pentagon Papers Case
Pentagon Papers
Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court

ASIN: 0700614230

Book Description

Inside the Pentagon Papers addresses legal and moral issues that resonate today as debates continue over government secrecy and democracy's requisite demand for truthfully informed citizens. In the process, it also shows how a closer study of this signal event can illuminate questions of government responsibility in any era.

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked a secret government study about the Vietnam War to the press in 1971, he set off a chain of events that culminated in one of the most important First Amendment decisions in American legal history. That affair is now part of history, but the story behind the case has much to tell us about government secrecy and the public's right to know.

Commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, "the Pentagon Papers" were assembled by a team of analysts who investigated every aspect of the war. Ellsberg, a member of the team, was horrified by the government's public lies about the war--discrepancies with reality that were revealed by the report's secret findings. His leak of the report to the New York Times and Washington Post triggered the Nixon administration's heavy-handed attempt to halt publication of their stories, which in turn led to the Supreme Court's ruling that Nixon's actions violated the Constitution's free speech guarantees.

Inside the Pentagon Papers reexamines what happened, why it mattered, and why it still has relevance today. Focusing on the "back story" of the Pentagon Papers and the resulting court cases, it draws upon a wealth of oral history and previously classified documents to show the consequences of leak and litigation both for the Vietnam War and for American history.

Included here for the first time are transcripts of previously secret White House telephone tapes revealing the Nixon administration's repressive strategies, as well as the government's formal charges against the newspapers presented by Solicitor General Erwin Griswold to the Supreme Court. Coeditor John Prados's point-by-point analysis of these charges demonstrates just how weak the government's case was--and how they reflected Nixon's paranoia more than legitimate national security issues.

This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.

The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam.
Average customer rating:

The Books That Changed History {4 1/2 stars}

The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam.
Beacon Press [1971-72]E Boston
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0807005274

Customer Reviews:

The Books That Changed History {4 1/2 stars}.......2003-05-14

This massive multi-volume study of US government policy on Vietnam has permanent value not just for scholars and students of the Vietnam War, but for anyone concerned with the making of American foreign policy. The "Papers" are fundamentally important not only in terms of content, of course, but even more so in contrast to the public statements of our leaders explaining the purpose and progress of the war. While this makes the (self-)deception and lies clear enough, it is the internal dialogue of bureaucratic thinking that is most fascinating.

The format of "The Pentagon Papers" is a bit confusing, with primary documents mixed into the main narrative, but not always in a distinguishable manner. The sheer bulk of the material will naturally deter many readers, but it does repay the effort and is superior to various abridgements. While the expurgated editions are useful, the nature of the selection process gives them an episodic quality, and tends to highlight dramatic incidents rather than the all-important mundane character of bureaucracy, even on life and death matters of global import.

Daniel Ellsberg, who released the papers to the press, may well have some unheroic qualities about him. But his greatness lay in transcending the constraints of background and institutional context, and recognizing a higher duty to his country and humanity. Not only the substance of "The Pentagon Papers" ensures their significance, but also Ellsberg's example of public service. This is vitally important in a time when yet another presidential administration deceives us all in pursuit of fatally flawed military adventures. Who will be the Daniel Ellsberg of the so-called "war on terror?"

Some of the issues raised by "The Pentagon Papers" and Ellsberg's career are addressed in N. Chomsky, "American Power and the New Mandarins" (especially the essays on intellectuals' responsibility); D. Ellsberg, "Secrets;" and from a rather different stance, J. Kwitny, "Endless Enemies." The fifth volume of the "Papers" contains invaluable critical essays by notable scholars such as Chomsky and Howard Zinn. For "balance," also look at Robert McNamara's mature reflections on Vietnam, "In Retrospect." But he still seems to be partly in denial.

The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays: Volume Five
Average customer rating:
The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays: Volume Five
Noam Chomsky , and Howard Zinn
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books | 19th Century | 20th Century | 21st Century | African Americans | Civil War | Colonial Period | General | Revolution & Founding | State & Local
Southeast Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

Deterring Democracy

The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

Pirates and Emperors, Old and New: International Terrorism in the Real World

ASIN: 0807005231

We, the People (Great Documents of the American Nation)
Average customer rating:
We, the People (Great Documents of the American Nation)
Jerome B. Agel
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0760718733

Product Description

We, the People contains every significant document in American history. Readers will encounter early and unfamiliar documents such as the Mayflower Compact...delve into landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Encompasses themes such as early history, foreign affairs, social reform, the Civil War, presidential addresses, civil rights, Indian affairs and more.

The Pentagon Papers as published by the New York times.

Average customer rating:

The Pentagon Papers as published by the New York times.
Neil Sheehan
Manufacturer: Quadrangle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000K02U1W

The Papers and the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers,

Average customer rating:

The Papers and the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers,
Sanford J. Ungar
Manufacturer: E P Dutton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0525041559

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books