Argument Without End
Subtitle: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy
Edition: Reissue edition
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: March 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 512
ISBN-13: 9781891620225
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history; International relations; Land forces & warfare; War & defence operations; Vietnam; Military - Vietnam War; Asia - Southeast Asia; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Indo-China - History; U.S. History - Vietnam Conflict (1965-1973); Politics/International Relations; History - Military / War; International Relations - General; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; History; Political History; United States; 1945-; 1945-1975
First sentence: The Vietnam War, with which I was personally involved for more than seven years as U.S. secretary of defense (1961-1968), was among the bloodiest in all of human history.
Description: Over the past four years, in six unprecedented meetings held in Hanoi and a seventh meeting in Italy, Robert McNamara, his colleagues in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and America's top Vietnam and military scholars finally met with their Vietnamese counterparts. In frank, revealing and sometimes astonishing dialogues, the two groups walked step-by-step through the war, analyzing each decision and action from both sides.

As they began to trust each other, these former enemies reconstructed the history of the war, filling in blanks, rewriting conventional wisdom, and often adding chapters previously unwritten. Why and how did America and North Vietnam end up on a collision course? Why did so many diplomatic efforts to end the war fail so miserably? Where did we miss opportunities to avoid the conflict altogether? For the first time ever, answers could be given to these and other questions.