Author Description

If one can learn more from failure than from success, the Vietnam War offers one of the best, if most painful, learning experiences in American military history. The men who held the position of Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, during those years were tested in ways that none of their predecessors had been. At that time the Chairman was the corporate spokesman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or first among equals when providing military advice to civilian leaders. Failure to provide military recommendations that won approval and proved effective had to be, in good part, the Chairman’s failure. It is useful to look at how Chairmen performed during the initial planning of the air campaign against North Vietnam in 1964 in order to assess what helped or hampered them. In other words, were the shortcomings of successive Chairmen personal or institutional?