Exclusive Quotes from `Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam'

Perhaps the most outstandingly original history of the Vietnam War is Lewis Sorley's A Better War. A Better War describes the US fight in Southeast Asia between 1969 and 1972. The US forces switched then from a big-unit strategy adapted from the Korean experience toward counterinsurgency methods. Following this superior strategy--and under the leadership of a superior commander, General Creighton Abrams--American forces secured populated areas and gained ascendancy on the battlefield..

It's a story that deserves to be much better known, and Sorley's book has gained wide and much deserved praise.

Now Sorley has produced a new book, telling the sadder story of the unsuccessful command of Gen. William Westmoreland, whom Sorley harshly but aptly condemns as "the general who lost Vietnam."

In conjunction with the book's release, Lewis Sorley has gathered a selection of Gen. Westmoreland's most jaw-dropping statements about the war. We post them in the rail below as an introduction to a definitive work of counter-revisionism. Unlike the verdict on 1969-72, the conventional wisdom on the early years of the Vietnam War is correct: the US lost - and it lost because its strategy was wrong and its forces badly led.

Lewis Sorley's new history is released today. If you want to understand the past 40 years of US national security policy - well I'm sorry, you have no choice except to read it.