Lessons in Disaster

A revelatory look at the decisions that led to the US involvement in Vietnam, drawing on the insights and reassessments of one of the war’s architects.

A Foreign Affairs Bestseller

In the last years of his life, the former US national security adviser McGeorge Bundy decided to revisit the role he played in leading the nation into the Vietnam War as a counselor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. “I had part in a great failure,” he said. “If I have learned anything I should share it.”

In this original and provocative work, the political scientist Gordon M. Goldstein draws on his prodigious research as well as interviews and analysis he conducted with Bundy before his death in 1996 to distill the essential lessons of America’s involvement in Vietnam. Lessons in Disaster is a historical tour de force on the uses and misuses of American power.

“Gordon Goldstein has written an illuminating book and a cautionary tale about the perils of intellectual arrogance overpowering good judgment at the highest levels of national security decision making. Every public servant and every citizen should know the story of McGeorge Bundy and how he lost his way.” —Tom Brokaw

“A compelling portrait of a man once serenely confident, searching decades later for self-understanding.” —Richard Holbrooke, The New York Times Book Review