Lost Victory.

• Author: Peters, Charles

Lost Victory Lost Victory. William Colby with James McCargar. Contemporary Books, $22.95. This book will play a crucial role in the national reconciliation on Vietnam that most thoughtful people know is important to any future consensus about the use of force by America in the Third World. If you believe, as I do, that such a consensus involves accepting such seemingly inconsistent facts as that many South Vietnamese did not want to live under the communists and that the massive involvement of American troops in 1965 was a horrible mistake, you'll want to read William Colby's story.

This is not to say that Colby was innocent of wrongdoing in Vietnam. It was while he was director of the CIA...