Determined to Persist takes readers inside the White House, the Pentagon, and the U.S. military headquarters in Hawaii and South Vietnam as it traces the internal debates, tensions, and critical inflection points of an extraordinary, six-year period of the Vietnam War.
The longest serving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle G. Wheeler was the senior military advisor to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. In disgust with their administrations’ disastrous Vietnam War policies, Wheeler shredded his memoirs. He died three years later. In consequence, a gaping hole has existed in the historiography of the Vietnam War – until now.
Using exclusive documents from the Wheeler family and others recently declassified, Determined to Persist overturns long-held, inaccurate perceptions of civilian-military relations during the Vietnam era and provides a fuller, more accurate representation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s role in the Vietnam War.
Approximating the viewpoint that Wheeler would have provided, Determined to Persist restores voice to this key foreign policy advisor to three U.S. Presidents who has remained an enigma for 46 years.
Although Lyndon Johnson was perhaps the most intimidating President to occupy the Oval Office, Wheeler was undaunted and openly resisted Johnson’s Vietnam War policies, both publicly and behind the scenes. Between June 1965 and January 1969, Wheeler led his Joint Chiefs of Staff colleagues to advocate a more aggressive, offensive strategy toward victory over North Vietnam.
Determined to Persist details for the first time the centerpiece of Wheeler’s strategy – a heretofore obscure, top-secret plan to invade North Vietnam.
Determined to Persist also details the Chiefs’ decision to resign en masse after Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara betrayed them before Congress, a decision some of them later officially denied. Initially in league with his colleagues, Wheeler dissuaded them, and they soldiered on.
