What stood out to me is in the early pages where McMasters describes Kennedy’s dismantling of the NSC structure that Eisenhower had put into place. When he did that he cut himself off from direct access to the JCS and they couldn’t warn him when he was headed for disaster. Not that JFK would have listened. He was more akin to McNamara and the Whiz Kids, whom my dad loathed with a passion. Most uniformed military at the Pentagon did.
Yes, but the Dereliction of Duty of the title refers largely to the JCS, whom McMasters holds fully accountable for their failure to defend both the young men who served under them and the country they'd sworn to protect. Only Curtis LeMay ever really kicked back against the idiotic ideas that the civilian leadership had about "managing" a war, and LeMay was a short-timer anyway.