The War Managers

This might be one of the strangest surveys ever: a review of about 200 American generals who served in Vietnam, conducted by one of their own, about their opinions of a war that had not yet finally been lost.

The picture that emerges is one of a dissatisfaction with the war in general, with specific management tools (body counts, ticket punching), and especially the South Vietnamese military and American media. Despite this, the generals thought they led well, did the best they could, and that failure for the war rests elsewhere. Kinnard tries to make the case that these generals were in fact introspective, but for all the strengths of the survey, the war managers come off looking more for scapegoats than lessons learned. The anonymous commentary from the respondents is the most interesting part of the book, but the survey methodology is perhaps not the best approach to get at the mindset of American generalship in 1974.