Overview

Rufus Phillips offers an extraordinary inside history of the most critical years of American involvement in Vietnam, from 1954 to 1968, and explains why it still matters. Describing what went right and then wrong, he contends that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road of a conventional war until it was too late-we missed the war's essential political character. Documenting the story from his own personal files, now available at the Texas Tech Vietnam Archive, as well as from the historical record, the former government official paints striking portraits of such key figures as John F. Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, Robert McNamara, Henry Cabot Lodge, Hubert Humphrey, and Ngo Dinh Diem, among others with whom he dealt.

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9781591146742

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Reviews

The timing couldn't be better for the paperback release of Rufus Phillips' first hand account of the Vietnam War... it coincides with the release of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick PBS series on the war (in which Phillips appears), and with recent decisions about how long we should stay in Afghanistan and to what end. --The Foreign Service Journal A brilliant book! ... Naval Institute Press have done a first rate job with [Phillips] book ... It shows very clearly and concisely why the United States failed so dismally in Korea, Vietnam and, subsequently, in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. --Ausmarine The book provides not only a detailed assessment of the war, but also a useful summary that encapsulates the various lessons learned from the conflict. --Military Heritage Why Vietnam Matters, which Phillips started writing 25 years ago, may be the very last personal account that gives an eyewitness depiction of events during the crucial early years of the war. What Phillips has to say is nothing short of fascinating. --HistoryNet Phillips's short chapter on lessons the U.S. should have learned from the Vietnam War should be mandatory reading in Washington, D.C. Publishers Weekly Phillips' extensive firsthand knowledge of personalities and events make Why Vietnam Matters an important work for anyone interested in understanding the Vietnam War and the broader issue of American military intervention abroad. --Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 'This is an inside history of what really happened in Vietnam and why it matters.' ...That's the first line of one of the most important books on the early history of the Vietnam War. --The VVA Veteran In the flood of books on every aspect of the Vietnam War, this is one that will endure as among the most valuable, accurate, and important. --LEWIS SORLEY, author of A Better War It is, among other things, a wonderful read, full of detail and drama. --GEORGE PACKER, The New Yorker If you want to know why Vietnam matters, read this brilliant memoir and find out why those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to make the same mistakes. --JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, co-author of We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young

Author Information

Rufus Phillips became a member of the Saigon Military Mission in 1954 and the following year served as the sole adviser to two Vietnamese army pacification operations, earning the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work. He later worked as a CIA civilian case officer in Vietnam and Laos, then joined the U.S. Agency for International Development's Saigon Mission to lead its counterinsurgency efforts. In 1964 he became a consultant for USAID and the State Department and served as an adviser to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He lives in Arlington, VA.

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