Critique de CHOICE

In this weighty collection of primary sources from the second half (1968-72) of the Vietnam War, Sorley produces a valuable resource from untold hours transcribing 455 tapes from the headquarters of General Creighton Abrams's US forces in Vietnam. The transcriptions provide verbatim recordings of briefings, meetings, and presentations among US military men, their Vietnamese counterparts, and stateside visitors. Such sources give the sense of being present in the room, where the frank comments of the players illuminate the view of the war from the US command's tent, as well as the relationship between the US military in country and nearly every other element of the war. Sorley, as his work in A Better War (1999) suggests, reads these and other sources to a controversial and narrow conclusion: that the US won in Vietnam but reneged on its promises to aid Saigon after the Paris Peace Accords. Such a conclusion is seriously debatable, but while that angle is implied in the presentation of this collection, the sources stand on their own. Even granted the limitations of the military view, these transcriptions are a valuable window for those attempting to understand the less-studied Vietnam War of the Nixon era. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Academic collections, advanced undergraduates and up. D. N. Buckaloo Coe College