General Andrew J. Goodpaster (1915-2005) was a brilliant military leader, a scholar and, most of all, an exceptional presidential adviser who served under seven successive administrations. A respected strategist, he participated at the highest levels of government in many of the most important decisions of the second half of the twentieth century. As President Eisenhower’s Staff Secretary, he was the de facto originator of the National Security Council process and served as a mentor and role model to his successors down to the present day. He was involved in many security challenges, such as establishing and sustaining NATO, planning for nuclear weapons and arms control, and implementing détente. He developed a collaborative method of approaching national security affairs —a style that reflected a strong capacity to engage effectively the necessary people to work together to achieve the best possible outcomes. In doing so, he learned and taught best practices in national security that still influence decision making today. This biography shows the importance of experienced soldier-scholars with high integrity on national security teams and provides the first systematic mining of the documents Goodpaster wrote on national security. Organized chronologically, it demonstrates how Goodpaster was able to adapt best practices to a constantly changing political, military, economic and technological environment. It also explains why he was so frequently selected as an insider in national security decision making. His life and work reveal how best to approach complex national security problems and the kind of collaborative leadership needed to get the job done. Still today, his method confirms General Scowcroft’s view that Goodpaster is “too important to ignore.”

“A comprehensive and long-overdue examination of the immediate post–Tet offensive years [from a] first-rate historian.” —The New York Times Book Review Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and still classified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials, award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and—at least for a time—results between the early and later years of the war. Among his most important findings is that while the war was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning on the ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War sheds new light on the Vietnam War.

Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in what became known as the Easter Offensive. Almost all of the American forces had already withdrawn from Vietnam except for a small group of American advisers to the South Vietnamese armed forces. The 23rd ARVN Infantry Division and its American advisers were sent to defend the provincial capital of Kontum in the Central Highlands. They were surrounded and attacked by three enemy divisions with heavy artillery and tanks but, with the help of air power, managed to successfully defend Kontum and prevent South Vietnam from being cut in half and defeated. Although much has been written about the Vietnam War, little of it addresses either the Easter Offensive or the Battle of Kontum. In Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam, Thomas P. McKenna fills this gap, offering the only in-depth account available of this violent engagement. McKenna, a U.S. infantry lieutenant colonel assigned as a military adviser to the 23rd Division, participated in the battle of Kontum and combines his personal experiences with years of interviews and research from primary sources to describe the events leading up to the invasion and the battle itself. Kontum sheds new light on the actions of U.S. advisers in combat during the Vietnam War. McKenna's book is not only an essential historical resource for America's most controversial war but a personal story of valor and survival.

“THE MEN WHO SACRIFICED FOR THEIR COUNTRY ARE RIGHTFULLY HERALDED . . . This is an honest book–one well worth reading. . . . Stanton has laid his claim to the historian’s ranks by providing his reader with well-documented, interpretive assessments.” –Parameters The Vietnam War remains deep in the nation’s consciousness. It is vital that we know exactly what happened there–and who made it happen. This book provides a complete account of American Army ground combat forces–who they were, how they got to the battlefield, and what they did there. Year by year, battlefield by battlefield, the narrative follows the war in extraordinary, gripping detail. Over the course of the decade, the changes in fighting and in the combat troops themselves are described and documented. The Rise and Fall of an American Army represents the first total battlefield history of Army ground forces in the Vietnam War, containing much previously unreleased archival material. It re-creates the feel of battle with dramatic precision. “Stanton’s writing . . . gives the reader a terrifying graphic description of combat in the many mini-environments of Vietnam.” –The New York Times “[A] MOVING, IMPORTANT BOOK.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

This is the first of a series of functional volumes on the Marine Corps' participation in the Vietnam War, which will complement the 10-volume operational and chronological series also underway. This particular history examines the role of the Navy chaplain serving with Marines, a vital partnership of fighting man and man of God which has been an integral part of the history of the Marine Corps since its inception.