Major Edward Cox
US Pacific Command
Lecture Date: May 2, 2013

To those who have heard of him, Fox Conner's name is synonymous with mentorship. He is the "grey eminence" within the Army whose influence helped to shape the careers of George Patton, George Marshall, and, most notably, President Eisenhower. What little is known about Conner comes primarily through stories about his relationship with Eisenhower, but little is known about Fox Conner himself. After a career that spanned four decades, this master strategist ordered all of his papers and journals burned. Because of this, most of what is known about Conner is oblique, as a passing reference in the memoirs of other great men. This book combines existing scholarship with long-forgotten references and unpublished original sources to achieve a more comprehensive picture of this dedicated public servant. The portrait that emerges provides a four-step model for developing strategic leaders that still holds true today. First and foremost, Conner was a master of his craft. Secondly, he recognized and recruited talented subordinates. Then he encouraged and challenged these proteges to develop their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. Finally he wasn't afraid to break the rules of the organization to do it. Here, for the first time ever, is the story of Major General Fox Conner. Grey Eminence received a Silver Medal for Best Non-fiction Biography of 2011 by the Military Writers Society of America.

Major Edward Cox holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and master's degrees in public administration and international relations from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. From 2008 to 2011, he was an assistant professor of American Politics, Public Policy and Strategy in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy. He taught courses in American politics, American foreign policy, and civil-military relations. Cox is a Foreign Area Officer, currently assigned as International Engagements Officer, U.S. Pacific Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii. Length: 49 Minutes

Dr. Lien-Hang Nguyen
Associate Professor of History, University of Kentucky
Lecture Date: Feb. 7, 2013

While most historians of the Vietnam War focus on the origins of U.S. involvement and the Americanization of the conflict, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued the war and American intervention ended. This riveting narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta to the bomb-saturated Red River Delta, from the corridors of power in Hanoi and Saigon to the Nixon White House, and from the peace negotiations in Paris to high-level meetings in Beijing and Moscow, all to reveal that peace never had a chance in Vietnam. Hanoi's War renders transparent the internal workings of America's most elusive enemy during the Cold War and shows that the war fought during the peace negotiations was bloodier and much more wide ranging than it had been previously. Using never-before-seen archival materials from the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as materials from other archives around the world, Nguyen explores the politics of war-making and peace-making not only from the North Vietnamese perspective but also from that of South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States, presenting a uniquely international portrait.

Lien-Hang T. Nguyen is an associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky. She received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD from Yale University, and has held fellowships from Stanford, Harvard and Yale universities. Her book, Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press. Length: 69 Minutes

David Finkel
Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist, Washington Post
and COL Ralph Kauzlarich
Student, US Army War College
Lecture Date: May 3, 2012

It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. It became known as "the surge." Among those called to carry it out were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, the battalion nicknamed the "Rangers." About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home — forever changed. The chronicle of their tour is gripping, devastating, and deeply illuminating for anyone with an interest in human conflict. With The Good Soldiers, David Finkel has produced an eternal story — not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time. In this lecture, Finkel will describe his experiences as an embedded journalist with the battalion, and will be joined by the unit's former commander, COL Ralph Kauzlarich. Length: 78 Minutes

Dr. Charles R. Shrader and LTC (Ret) Clayton Newell
Independent Scholars
Lecture Date: Feb, 2, 2012

On the eve of the Civil War, the Regular Army of the United States was small, dispersed, untrained for large-scale operations, and woefully unprepared to suppress the rebellion of the secessionist states. Although the Regular Army expanded significantly during the war, reaching a peak of nearly 45,000 officers and men by the beginning of 1864, it was necessary to form an enormous army of state volunteers that overshadowed the Regulars and bore most of the combat burden.
Nevertheless, the Regular Army played several critically important roles, notably providing leaders and exemplars for the Volunteers, bolstering Union forces in both attack and defense, and managing the administration and logistics of the entire Union Army. In this first comprehensive study of the Regular Army in the Civil War, Newell and Shrader focus primarily on the organizational history of the Regular Army and how it changed as an institution during the war, to emerge afterward as a reorganized and permanently expanded force. Clayton R.
Newell and Charles R. Shrader both finished their military careers as chief of the Historical Services Division at the U.S. Army Center of Military History and are now independent scholars and historical consultants. Newell is the author or editor of several books, including The Framework of Operational Warfare and Lee vs. McClellan: The First Campaign. Shrader has also written or edited a number of books, including Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War, and The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia: A Military History, 1991-1994. Length: 80 Minutes

Dr. Edward G. Longacre
Independent Scholar
Lecture Date: Nov. 3, 2011

The 100th Infantry ("Century”) Division spent the last six months of WW II in southern France and western Germany as part of the U. S. Seventh Army; thus it shared the historical neglect accorded to those Allied units that failed to serve farther north under Bradley, Patton, and Montgomery. Formed in September 1942 at Fort Jackson, SC, and later transferred to Fort Bragg, NC, the division--consisting of the 397th, 398th, and 399th Infantry Regiments, four field artillery battalions, and a host of support units--lost thousands of recruits as replacements for units that had suffered heavily in Europe and the Pacific. Backfills included U. S. Army Air Forces trainees, Special Services troops, and washed-out members of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), high-IQ youngsters who had been studying engineering, military medicine, and foreign languages. The rather motley composition of the command, a supplemental training program necessitated by the personnel turnover, and the division's frequent participation in combat simulations to impress visiting dignitaries and businessmen gave the Century a reputation as a "show" or "permanent training" division. After finally moving to France in October 1944, however, the division proved itself in battle quickly and decisively. In November it penetrated a defensive line in the High Vosges Mountains that had been the unattained objective of attackers since the first century BC. In December it helped capture works along the vaunted Maginot Line, and the following month was the only element of Seventh Army to hold its position during Operation North Wind, Hitler's follow-up to the counteroffensive that precipitated the Battle of the Bulge. In March 1945 the Century overwhelmed the remaining Maginot forts and captured the citadel of Bitche, another position assaulted by many armies over the centuries but never carried. Crossing the Rhine River, in nine days of house-to-house fighting the self-proclaimed "Sons of Bitche" cleared rubble-filled Heilbronn, Germany, whose defenders--a Waffen-SS division, several Panzer units, a mix of regular troops, and Volkssturm that included 12-year-old Hitler Youth, 70-year-old grandfathers, and female snipers--waged a horrific last stand one month before war's end. Length: 62 Minutes

Dr. Michael R. Matheny
U.S. Army War College
Lecture Date: May 12, 2011

Military commanders turn tactics into strategic victory by means of "operational art," the knowledge and creative imagination commanders and staff employ in designing, synchronizing, and conducting battles and major operations to achieve strategic goals. Until now, historians of military theory have generally agreed that modern operational art developed between the first and second world wars in Germany and the Soviet Union, whose armies were supposedly the innovators and greatest practitioners of operational art. Some have even claimed that U.S. forces struggled in World War II because their commanders had no systematic understanding of operational art. Michael R. Matheny believes previous studies have not appreciated the evolution of U.S. military thinking at the operational level. Although they may rightly point to the U.S. Army's failure to modernize or develop a sophisticated combined arms doctrine during the interwar years, they focus too much on technology or tactical doctrine. In his revealing account, Matheny shows that it was at the operational level, particularly in mounting joint and combined operations, that senior American commanders excelled—and laid a foundation for their country's victory in World War II. Matheny draws on archival materials from military educational institutions, planning documents, and operational records of World War II campaigns. Examining in detail the development of American operational art as land, sea, and air power matured in the twentieth century, he shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, U.S. war colleges educated and trained commanders during the interwar years specifically for the operational art they employed in World War II. After 1945, in the face of nuclear warfare, the American military largely abandoned operational art. But since the Vietnam War, U.S. commanders have found operational art increasingly important as they pursue modern global and expeditionary warfare requiring coordination among multiple service branches and the forces of allied countries. Length: 67 Minutes

Interview Date: Feb. 3, 2011

Many histories of the Vietnam War suffer from a one-sided perspective due to lack of access to Vietnamese source materials. Dr. Lewis Sorley corrects that problem with his edited volume of interviews with some of the senior South Vietnamese generals. Conducted in the 1970s, these interviews received limited publication and then languished in obscurity. Dr. Sorley re-discovered them and has annotated them to provide additional context. This interview, conducted by the U.S. Army Military History Institute's Dr. Conrad Crane, reveals some of Sorley's journey of discovery of these documents leading to eventual publication. It provides insights into the historian's craft, as well as additional information not contained in the accompanying lecture. Length: 49 Minutes

Dr. Lewis Sorley
Independent Scholar
Lecture Date: Feb. 3, 2011

In the five years or so after the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army Center of Military History sponsored a project in which half a dozen senior former South Vietnamese generals wrote lengthy monographs on various aspects of the war as seen from their perspective. There were seventeen such monographs in all, some by individual authors, others by two or more of the group collaborating. Among the authors were General Cao Van Vien, former Chief of the Joint General Staff; Lieutenant General Ngo Quang Truong, former 1st ARVN Division and I Corps commander; and Lieutenant General Dong Van Khuyen, the top logistician. Topics included tactics, logistics, advisors, pacification, leadership, intelligence, and all the major battles (Tet 1968, Cambodian Incursion, Lam Son 719, Easter 1972). In the aggregate this was very valuable material, but the CMH publication of it left something to be desired and distribution was limited.Dr. Lewis Sorley has annotated a compendium of excerpts from the monographs to produce a valuable contribution to the now under-represented South Vietnamese retrospective view of the war and as such will be useful both to scholars of the war and to those who served in it or have an interest in its history. Length: 66 Minutes

Dr. Sandra O'Connell
Independent Scholar
Lecture Date: Nov. 4 , 2010 

WWII in the words of B-17 pilot Ralph Lee Minker, his parents and sisters, captured in an extraordinary collection of over 800 letters written between February 1943 and September, 1945. Spread over the landscape of the war years, the Minker family letters tell a unique story of courage in the air and resolve on the homefront. Length: 56 Minutes

Matt Gallagher
Independent Scholar
Lecture Date: Aug. 5, 2010

When Lieutenant Matt Gallagher first arrived in Iraq in 2007, it was all too surreal. In the midst of a shift in U.S. policy from lethal operations to counterinsurgency, he encountered a world where nothing was as it appeared. Friends were enemies, reconciliation was war, roads were bombs, and silence was deadly. But it was all too real, and there was nothing left to do except learn to "embrace the suck" -- and write about it. Matt Gallagher started a blog that quickly became a popular hit. Read by thousands of soldiers who found in it their war, the real war, the blog covered everything from grim stories about Bon Jovi cassettes mistaken for IEDs to the daily experiences of the Gravediggers - the code name for members of Gallagher's platoon. When the blog was shut down in June 2008 by the U.S. Army, questions were raised in the halls of Congress, and a few eyebrows were raised at the Pentagon. Length: 61 Minutes

Dr. Richard Dinardo
Professor for National Security Affairs
U.S. Marine Corps Command and General Staff College
Lecture Date: May 6, 2010

For too long the eastern front in World War I has remained, in Winston Churchill’s estimation, “the unknown war.” This book examines one of the critical campaigns of the war on the eastern front. With Austria-Hungary threatened by a possible Russian advance through the Carpathian Mountains into Hungary, Germany came to her ally’s rescue. The German Chief of the General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, decided to commit a new army in an offensive to counter this threat. Headed by August von Mackensen and his chief of staff Hans von Seeckt, the German Eleventh Army, assisted by the Austro-Hungarian Third and Fourth Armies, shattered the Russian defenses between Gorlice and Tarnow. Advancing through the hole created, Mackensen’s forces outflanked the Russian forces in the Carpathians, compelling their retreat. The offensive was steadily extended until both the fortress of Przemysl and the capital of Austrian Galicia, Lemberg, were back in the hands of the Central Powers. Turning north, “Mackensen’s Phalanx,” in concert with other German and Austro-Hungarian forces, was able to overrun Russian Poland by the end of August 1915. Dinardo argues that the Germans were able to accomplish this by a combination of normal infantry tactics combined with the judicious use of heavy artillery, aided by aerial reconnaissance and improved means of communication. DiNardo also suggests that the campaign marked the emergence of August von Mackensen as one of Germany’s most able field commanders. Breakthrough is the first full English language study of one of the most remarkable campaigns of World War I.
Richard L. DiNardo has a B.A. in History in 1979 from Bernard Baruch College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY); and a M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in History from the Graduate School and University Center of CUNY. DiNardo taught German History and Russian History at Saint Peter’s College, Jersey City, New Jersey. He was also a Visiting Professor at the Air War College at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, from 1994-1996. DiNardo assumed his present position with the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in January 1998. His first book was Mechanised Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?: Horses and the German Army in World War II, and he published Germany and the Axis Powers: From Coalition to Collapse, in 2005. He is also the author of Germany’s Panzer Arm. DiNardo co-edited The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815, and James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy, and has published numerous scholarly articles. This lecture is based on his latest book, Breakthrough: The Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign 1915, due out in June, 2010. Length: 67 Minutes

Dr. John Prados
Historian, National Security Archive
Lecture Date: Feb. 4, 2010

The Vietnam war continues to be the focus of intense controversy. While most people—liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, historians, pundits, and citizens alike—agree that the United States did not win the war, a vocal minority argue the opposite or debate why victory never came, attributing the quagmire to everything from domestic politics to the press. The military never lost a battle; how then did it not win the war?
Stepping back from this overheated fray and drawing upon several decades of research John Prados takes a fresh look at both the war and the debates about it to produce a reassessment of one of our nation's most tragic episodes. He weaves together multiple perspectives across an epic-sized canvas where domestic politics, ideologies, nations, and militaries all collide.
Prados patiently pieces back together the events and moments, from the end of World War II until our dispiriting departure from Vietnam in 1975, that reveal a war that now appears to have been truly unwinnable—due to opportunities lost, missed, ignored, or refused. He shows how—from the Truman through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations—American leaders consistently ignored or misunderstood the realities in Southeast Asia and passed up every opportunity to avoid war in the first place or avoid becoming ever more mired in it after it began. Highlighting especially Ike's seminal and long-lasting influence on our Vietnam policy, Prados demonstrates how and why our range of choices narrowed with each passing year, while our decision-making continued to be distorted by Cold War politics and fundamental misperceptions about the culture, psychology, goals, and abilities of both our enemies and our allies in Vietnam.
John Prados is a senior fellow of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. His numerous books include “Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975” (2009) on which this lecture is based; The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War, The Hidden History of the Vietnam War, and most recently Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA . Length: 69 Minutes

William W. Stueck, Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor, University of Georgia
Lecture Date: Oct. 29, 2009

U.S. armed forces have been present in Korea since the armistice of July 1953, but consideration of the reduction and even withdrawal of those forces to a token level has been almost constantly under consideration in Washington. Why is this so? Why has further reduction not occurred? What does treatment of the issue in the past suggest about the future U.S. force presence in Korea? William Stueck received his PhD in History from Brown University. He teaches at the University of Georgia, where he is currently Distinguished Research Professor of History. In 1995 he was a senior research scholar at Hanguk University of foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea. Length: 77 Minutes

Dr. Sarandis Papadopoulos
Historian, Naval History and Heritage Command
Lecture Date: Aug. 27, 2009 

The 9/11 attack on the Pentagon is the second-worst terrorist strike in U.S. history. The authors of Pentagon 9/11 drew upon over 1,300 oral history interviews, as well as a plethora of published and unpublished sources, to craft the first book detailing the impact of this disastrous event. Highlighting the devastating the airliner crash, the efforts of building occupants to save one another, the emergency response of firefighters, police and medical staffs, and the building operations personnel, the book concludes with a description of the work of the Pentagon Family Assistance Center. Dr. Papadopoulos, a principal co-author of this work, will present the main themes of the book illustrated with pictures derived from its research, and employ some of the more vivid segments to illustrate what transpired at that momentous time. Length: 60 Minutes