Westmoreland is a scholarly murder. Sorley does a masterful job showing the meteoric rise and fall of General Westmoreland, a man propelled by his ambitions beyond his capabilities. I don't think there was single person with a negative opinion of Westmoreland who did not get a chance to stick a knife in by the end.

From youth, Westmoreland was marked for success. The child of a South Carolina mill manager, he was an eagle scout and chief of cadets at West Point in 1936. A field grade officer during World War 2, his active and aggressive style as commander of an artillery battery saw him promoted to colonel, mentored by airborne commander General Maxwell Taylor (later chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ambassador to South Vietnam). As he cycled through command of elite airborne units and a stint as commander at West Point, Westmoreland knew how to play on his looks, bearing, and political connections, and was tapped to take command of the war in Vietnam in 1964.

There, Westmoreland met the test of his life, and failed. Sorley describes Westmoreland's defeat in detail as a commander over the next four years: Neglecting ARVN in favor of fruitless search and destroy missions; requiring optimistic assessments from his subordinates, regardless of the truth; the whole fiasco of removing entire classes of Viet Cong guerrillas from the order of battle; focusing on selling the war in '67 instead of fighting it. The Tet Offensive shattered what remained of Westmoreland's credibility, and he was failed upwards to Army Chief of Staff.

There, Sorley is even harsher, recounting a tenure that ignored major problems in the army to focus on protecting Westmoreland's reputation in the official history. Westmoreland in retirement seemed a broken man, with a farcical run for governor, and an ill-advised libel suit against CBS for a special report on the Order of Battle. Westmoreland appears to have done good work for Vietnam Veterans, but none of that is mentioned, aside from a quote from his New York Time obituary.

The picture of Westmoreland that emerges is a man with a planetary sense of self-importance, a narcissus captured by being the image of the modern four-star general at the expense of actually winning a war. Sorley uses the ample archives of Westmoreland's actions to contradict the man's memoirs and later testimony. Westmoreland the strategist is one behind step events and trying to take credit for other people's work. His personal warmth and loyalty to his friends is countered by repeated accusations of gross stupidity, of an inability to learn, or clearly discern significant elements in confusing circumstances.

My other reading on the Vietnam War has focused on Westmoreland as a central figure, as the man who set American tactics in South Vietnam, who had the best opportunity to "win" the war, if it could be won, and who instead escalated it to a futile meatgrinder. This biography is a strong negative assessment of the man, but dances around two key issues: First, why was Westmoreland selected for such a key role as commander in Vietnam? It seems no one made the affirmative decision to send him there, he was merely a rising star in the right place. Second, search and destroy became a self-justifying mission for the war. Why did Westmoreland choose this set of tactics, and persist in it despite clear evidence of its inefficiency? Sorley is silent on Westmoreland's affirmative qualities.