Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam

By H. R. McMaster

Categories: History

Dereliction of Duty (1997, HarperCollins) is H. R. McMaster's history of the decisions that drew the United States into the Vietnam War, developed from his dissertation at the University of North Carolina. McMaster argues that President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sidelined the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pursued a strategy of graduated pressure and concealed the scale of the commitment from Congress and the public, while the Chiefs failed to press their objections. He traces these choices from 1963 to the escalation of 1965.

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• Bill Gates: “If you're interested in reading more about this debate, I recommend H.R. McMaster's excellent book Dereliction of Duty.”