Who, What, Where, When and Why

Dear Subscribers...

The first installment of LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail will appear as a Substack post on Tuesday, June 4. Substacks are sent only to subscribers, who have signed up for them, which indicates a measure of interest in their contents. Some subscribers share them with friends.

To explain: The Substack enterprise which hosts these newsletters solicits paid subscriptions offering a range of options in addition to a free plan, which is what an overwhelming percentage of people choose. There are now thousands of Substacks available and some said to reach a vast audience in paid and free subscriptions. Peter Osnos’ Platform donates the revenue it receives — after the commission to Substack — to two NGOs, CIVIC (Center for Civilians in Conflict) and (BSF (Barth Syndrome Foundation).

Why would a writer “give away” work? I can’t really answer that question without a self-serving explanation. I value the opportunity to write about what interests me and hopefully readers — a value sufficient to make the effort worthwhile.

I have been writing regularly in online formats for almost twenty years. Along the way I have also posted these pieces on social media sites, to understand how this increasingly important means of communicating information and entertainment actually functions.

TikTok, Instagram, and their counterparts are exceptionally powerful, but they seem unlikely to connect me to readers inclined toward my choice of topics. I did post on Facebook and Twitter (before it became X). As the Facebook algorithm shifted away from journalism and personal columns, my “views” (apparently people who were chosen to receive them) dwindled to a very few, despite the fact that technically I had accrued more than 1,500 “friends.” And X is now controlled by Elon Musk, and I can’t fathom much of what he publicly says and does. I have joined Linked In.

The reach of Peter Osnos’ Platform is largely limited, therefore, to subscribers and those who get it from people who are.

My objective in writing LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail is to draw on my decades of experience with the Vietnam war as a reporter, editor, and publisher of material about this era in history, which has had so great an impact on our country -- especially for my generation, who came of age as it was happening and as it became a major factor in American life, and in our politics and culture ever since.

Each of what we expect to be eighteen installments in this series will remain on this site and will be accessible through www. platformbooksllc.net. Also on that site will be the source notes and acknowlegdments for the project and a link to a two-hour edited audio of McNamara working with editors and his historian assistant for his memoir In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. The audio is unique in being able to hear how what became the contents of the book were formulated — the effort by McNamara to explain why it was that America’s engagement in Vietnam ended the way it did and his role and responsibility for that outcome.

Choosing to release this narrative as a digital serial does not reflect any loss of belief in the classic book in print, as an ebook or audio. Having spent so long on the subject of Vietnam the opportunity to offer the result of my experience and the research and reflections of others — outside the traditional marketplace — proved to be, for me, at least irresistible.

Best,

Peter