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Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Sorley, USA
(ret.) “is a third-generation West Point graduate who served in Vietnam as executive officer of a tank battalion. He
graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1956. He earned his MA at Pennsylvania State University
and his Ph.D. at John Hopkins University. During his military career Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Sorley an instructor at West
Point, an Executive Officer in Vietnam and the command of the 2nd Tank Battalion, 37th Armor.
Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Sorley
is the author of Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times; A Better War: The Unexamined
Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam; Honor Bright: History and Origins of the West Point Honor
Code and System; Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command; Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes,
1968-1972; Reflections: South Vietnam's Generals Assess Their War; Arms Transfers under Nixon: A Policy Analysis; and,
The Central Intelligence Agency: An Overview.
According to the book description of
Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972, “During the four years General Creighton
W. Abrams was commander in Vietnam, he and his staff made more than 455 tape recordings of briefings and meetings. In 1994,
with government approval, Lewis Sorley began transcribing and analyzing the tapes. Sorley’s laborious, time-consuming
effort has produced a picture of the senior U.S. commander in Vietnam and his associates working to prosecute a complex and
challenging military campaign in an equally complex and difficult political context. The concept of the nature of the war and the way it was conducted
changed during Abrams’s command. The progressive buildup of U.S. forces was reversed, and Abrams became responsible
for turning the war back to the South Vietnamese. The edited transcriptions in this volume clearly reflect those changes in
policy and strategy. They include briefings called the Weekly Intelligence Estimate Updates as well as meetings with such
visitors as the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other high-ranking officials. In Vietnam
Chronicles we see, for the first time, the difficult task that Creighton Abrams accomplished with tact and skill.”
According to the book description of
Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command, “A man of extraordinary
inner strength and patriotic devotion, General Harold K. Johnson was a soldier's officer, loved by his men and admired
by his peers for his leadership, courage, and moral convictions. Lewis Sorley's biography provides a fitting testament
to this remarkable man, who rose from obscurity to become LBJ's Army Chief of Staff during the Vietnam War. A native of
North Dakota, Johnson survived more than three grueling years as a POW under the Japanese during World War II before serving
brilliantly as a field commander in the Korean War, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary
heroism." These experiences led to a series of high-level positions culminating in his appointment as Army chief in 1964
and were the subject of a cover story in Time magazine.”
What followed should have been the
most rewarding period of Johnson's military career. Instead, it proved to be a nightmare, as he quickly became mired in
the politics and ordeal of a very misguided war. Johnson fundamentally disagreed with the three men running
our war in Vietnam: LBJ, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and General William Westmoreland. He was sharply critical of
LBJ's piecemeal policy of gradual escalation and failure to mobilize the national will or call up the reserves. He was
equally despondent over Westmoreland's now infamous search-and-destroy tactics and reliance on body counts to measure
success in Vietnam.
By contrast, Johnson advocated greater
emphasis on cutting the North's supply lines, helping the South Vietnamese provide for their own internal defenses, and
sustaining a legitimate government in the South. Unheeded, he nevertheless continued to work behind the scenes to correct
the flawed approach of the United States to the war. Sorley's study adds immeasurably to our understanding of the Vietnam
War. It also provides an inspiring account of principled leadership at a time when the American military is seeking to recover
the kind of moral values exemplified by Harold K. Johnson. As such, it presents a profound morality tale for our own era.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of Thunderbolt:
General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times, “Abrams (1914-1974) made a name for himself during
WW II's Battle of the Bulge when he led his tank battalion in relief of an encircled American division at Bastogne. A
quarter century later, having replaced Gen. William Westmoreland as MAC-V (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam) commander
in Saigon, he supervised the process of preparing the South Vietnamese government to take over the war while American forces
withdrew. Abrams's reputation for competence and uncompromising integrity was intact when he returned to the U.S. in 1972
("Abe never talks about ethics," said a colleague quoted here, "he just examples it"). Appointed Army
chief of staff, Abrams now faced the greatest challenge of his career: reforming the demoralized Army. Sorley, who has taught
at West Point and the Army War College, provides a detailed account of how Abrams initiated such a turnaround in the post-Vietnam
days. This anecdote-rich biography captures the essence of a great but little-known general who was an important military
transitional figure.”
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