The Vietnam war really needs a Thucydides, but it has not lacked for chroniclers and commentators, much of the story has got out into the public record, and at least Nigel Cawthorne's account is level-headed and free from histrionics or preaching. It doesn't come over to me as a political work in the sense of taking a particularly judgmental stance regarding the combatants, and while Cawthorne obviously knows an atrocity when he sees one, where there are wider lessons to be drawn he leaves it by and large to his readers to draw them. I have not attempted to verify the detail, but a good deal of this ghastly narrative rings a bell, and I would guess that he is unlikely to be far wide of the facts in general. The miasma of deception that pervades the book is not of the author's creating, it comes from the actors. The Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to the first ratcheting-up of the stakes in the war seems to have been fabrication. Victories were regularly claimed that were no victories at all. Bombing of neighbouring countries was happening and being denied with barefaced mendacity. However it is one thing to lie to other people if one's own mind is at least clear. What in my own view is a lot worse is a pig-headed refusal to see that some basic strategic assumptions were at best questionable. Underlying this conflict was a perceived need to combat some ill-defined spread of international communism, often conveniently summed up as the domino theory. Any reasonable person could see that the Soviet Union was a squalid nuisance and that firmness was needed in dealing with it. In addition it had aspirations as a world power seeking parity, or more, of status with America, in consequence of which America invented the concept of something called 'the West', a number of nations given rather more of a role than they might have wished in furthering American objectives and threatened with domino status if they stepped out of line. However it had been obvious from an early stage to President Eisenhower for one that red China was no domino nor any lackey, to say the least, of the Soviet Union, but the domino concept had caught hold, and that was what the war in Vietnam was originally supposed to have been about. Neither the Soviet Union nor China, it became increasingly clear, had much influence over Ho Chi Minh or General Giap, but we were in there now and we thought we had to stay there. Strategy after military strategy failed but the pretence of success had to be kept up, and the worse we were faring the more the same failing approach was seen as the remedy, in a familiar way -- Milton's 'Serbonian bog...where armies whole have sunk'. There were even people whose credulity ran to believing that some sort of democracy was on offer from some quarter, although their number can't have included many Vietnamese.

Let me take you to the New York Times of 9/4/67. There you will read 'US encouraged by Vietnam vote: officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror', and more along the same lines. Does this remind you of something in the early weeks of 2005? Cawthorne's conclusion is interesting. We lost the wretched war anyway, and now here is Vietnam providing sweatshop labour for American commerce. The Soviet Union and any supposed threat from it have gone, and I would add that it would have collapsed anyway through its monstrous war economy with or without either Mr Reagan or the war in Afghanistan. The Vietnam war achieved precisely nothing that I can see, but we went into it as self-righteous know-alls. We are now back with that mentality, still seemingly unable to understand what motivates people and how it differs from what motivates us, under similar mendacious pretexts. It's not so much the deception that bothers me as the self-deception in it all.


Excellent end to end unbias coverage of the Vietnam war   July 16, 2003
 25 out of 26 found this review helpful

I was looking for a book on Vietnam which is not the size of a phone book, but which covers all aspects of the war, including (1.) the history of Vietnam, (2.) the events leading up to American involvement in Vietnam, (3.) the war in Vietnam, (4.) the small war in the U.S. being waged by Anti war campaigners, (5.) the pullout of US troops, and (6.) vietnam today. This book covers all those points in a excellent way. The language and text are simple to read, and there are lots of interesting pictures of key figures/scenes. It is not full of military jargon, nor does it assume the reader has any previous knowledge of the war. The only downside is the frequent spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. If you can put these to the side, I would recommend this book strongly, as a great end to end coverage of this turbulent period in US history.