WASHINGTON--'Gray is the color of truth." So said McGeorge Bundy, 31 years ago, in a speech about the Vietnam War. Historical truths are always ambiguous, never more so than those that deal with a failed war.

Most Americans long ago concluded that President Lyndon B. Johnson and his key aides--the Bundy brothers (McGeorge and William P.), Robert S. McNamara and other bright lights of the establishment--stumbled into that quagmire out of hubris and ignorance.

Now, new archival evidence suggests that the truth is far more painful.

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