Townsend Walter Hoopes II (April 28, 1922 – September 20, 2004) was an American historian and government official, who reached the height of his career as Under Secretary of the Air Force from 1967 to 1969.
He continued as staff aide to three Secretaries of Defense: James Forrestal, General George Marshall and Robert A. Lovett from 1948 to 1953.
Serving as Under Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon from 1967 to 1969, he witnessed firsthand the effect of the 1968 Tet Offensive and Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent decision to de-escalate the war in Vietnam.
A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."
The book deals with the period from 1965 to President Johnson's March 31, 1968 speech ordering a partial bombing halt and announcing that he would not run for re-election.
As well as serving as Hoopes's memoir, the book offered an insider's view of the post-Tet Offensive decision-making within the Pentagon, especially that of Secretary of Defense Clark M. Clifford.
The book described how the Tet Offensive undermined the support within the government and the country for the strategy of aerial bombardment and ground search-and-destroy missions, fostering instead the view that further escalation of the war was futile.