The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War Paperback – December 12, 2017

This is an amazing book to read for insight to a time that I have only heard stories about from my parents. Loved learning the history and insight for sure!

I will not add to the plethora of positive reviews here at Amazon. Yes, the book is thick (Over 700 pages), and it certainly does not make casual or "light" reading. However, the "Pentagon Papers" are, without doubt, one of the greatest journalistic triumphs of the 20th century. The reader is given a detailed, incredibly intimate summary of how policy makers in Washington decided to get the US involved in Vietnam, tracing the story from the mid-1950s through the Tet Offensive of 1968. In short, the US found itself involved in Vietnam for the following combination of reasons: A severe case of post-WWII "We-are-the-Victors" hubris, a terminal view of the world in "Either-Or / Us-versus-Them" terms, a firm belief in placing military solutions above diplomatic & economic alternatives, a blind faith in "experts" (In this case, Ivy League academics and Generals in the Pentagon), and last (But certainly not least), the mere fact that we, the USA, had the wealth, material means, and financial wherewithal to do so..................

The Pentagon Papers were first published in an era when the American public largely trusted their elected officials to tell them the truth. That is the first thing one must understand as they read through the Pentagon Papers. The papers caused such a stir upon their publication in 1971 because they provided the public with a view of the war in Vietnam that was dramatically different than what policymakers had been saying publicly. It’s easy to say that “they lied to us” and move on, but I think reading the Pentagon Papers provides a broader lesson in presidential decision-making.The Pentagon Papers tell the ultimate insiders’ story of how four different Presidential administrations (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson) became involved in Vietnam-each one more than the one before it. As they became more involved, the range of policy options becomes narrower and narrower until Lyndon Johnson is left pouring more and more troops into a war that is being questioned both by the American public, and as the Pentagon Papers show us, members of Johnson’s cabinet.I think one also becomes aware of the dangers of overconfidence and misperception that can occur when one sees the world as one great ideological battle between freedom and communism where one is either for democracy and freedom or a communist without any thought or regard for the dynamics within nations and how they interact with the broader world. But it’s easy to lob this criticism forty years later, I think we also must consider the world these four presidents confronted. Communism seemed to be making gains throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Standing up for the free world became a matter of national security and personal imperatives.Concerning the papers themselves, the way the Pentagon Papers are presented is very reader friendly. The editors have grouped things based on major milestones in the American involvement in Vietnam and each section starts with a clearly written lengthy introduction explaining to reader what they will find in the documents section. While some people may say that this “spoils” the actual documents, I think that it makes it easier for readers to comprehend the documents. It is very easy for people to get lost in governmental documents and they become a slog, even if one reads governmental documents regularly, but the introductory sections kept this to a minimum.For constitutional law and Supreme Court buffs, they have also included the Supreme Court cases New York Times vs. United States and the United States vs. The Washington Post, which dealt with the seemingly unresolved debate between freedom of the press/the public's right to know vs. national security concerns. Even though, I read them, I would not blame anyone for stopping at the end of the Pentagon Papers.In summary, it’s an important work that raises a lot of questions that still matter in 2021. But patience is a virtue when reading it.

I read this book as part of my ongoing research into the assassination of President Kennedy. In my opinion the conflict in Vietnam is one of the keys to unraveling this greatest of mysteries if it can even still be called a mystery today.The conspiracy theory is President Kennedy was going to end America's involvement in Vietnam once he was re-elected in 1964. And that was something the Military Industrial Complex was never going to allow to happen.The great Fletcher Prouty worked with Allen Dulles at the CIA up until the time JFK got killed. Fletcher felt there never was any real military objective in Vietnam. The goal was to create a bottomless money pit of military spending. So the CIA was doing things in Vietnam to prolong the conflict for as long as possible even if this meant getting American military personnel killed.Author and historian John M. Newman has shown how the CIA and American military intelligence were telling President Kennedy and Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara all lies about the true state of affairs in Vietnam. But they were telling then Vice President Lyndon Johnson the truth about what a quagmire Vietnam had become and would most likely always be. So Johnson knew what was going to happen in Vietnam even before he became president.Fletcher Prouty and also James W. Douglass in his book JFK And The Unspeakable tell how the CIA had infiltrated every aspect of the power structures in Washington, DC. The CIA had their spies collecting information from all the government agencies and telling lies to everyone in the government also.I don't really see a lot in this massive book about the Pentagon Papers to make me doubt those conspiracy theories.The book says JFK continued America's involvement in Vietnam. But the fact remains that when JFK was alive and in office the number of American military personnel in Vietnam was around 16,000. And according to an official government document called NSAM 263 JFK had ordered that all American personnel should leave Vietnam in the near future.Then within a few days after JFK got killed Lyndon Johnson issued NSAM 273 which seems to be a vaguely worded document about the future policy and plans for Vietnam which could be interpreted in many different ways. It's creepy because people say Lyndon started working on the draft for NSAM 273 when President Kennedy was still alive.This book also confirms that there didn't seem to be any real military objectives in Vietnam. The stated objective was to just keep escalating the destruction against the enemy until they got discouraged.But as I said if the conspiracy theories are true the CIA knew all along that this would never happen.

I recently heard about the story behind the book. Also, the movie "the Post", goes into how it come to be released. I was amazed at what was printed and realized that you may not always get the truth from those whom control it. Read, learn, and pass this on to the next generation, as this type of thing will happen again.