A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and American in Vietnam.

SHEEHAN, Neil.

Item Number: 114779

New York: Random House, 1988.

First edition of the definitive Vietnam War exposé which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “Jan. 12, 1990 To Rogelio + Nancy Novey, Whom it has been my pleasure to meet at the home of a treasured friend, Ben Wells, All Best Wishes, Neil Sheehan.” Near fine in near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by John Sposato.

When he came to Vietnam in 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann was the one clear-sighted participant in an enterprise riddled with arrogance and self-deception, a charismatic soldier who put his life and career on the line in an attempt to convince his superiors that the war should be fought another way. By the time he died in 1972, Vann had embraced the follies he once decried. He died believing that the war had been won. In this magisterial book, a monument of history and biography that was awarded the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, a renowned journalist tells the story of John Vann—"the one irreplaceable American in Vietnam"—and of the tragedy that destroyed a country and squandered so much of America's young manhood and resources.