The strength of the book is the fact that the material itself is so fascinating. Saigon, circa 1963, was an extremely exciting place for a foreign journalist. America had begun a huge build-up of forces in South Vietnam, the Diem regime was at its most oppressive, and the Vietcong were making huge gains in the rural countryside. Into this mix were thrown men like David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Peter Arnett, and Malcolm Brown: relatively young, idealistic reporters who were determined to get the real story. But the US officials in South Vietnam were less than willing to assist the "green" correspondents, who they claimed were not "on the team." Lied to and rebuffed by the official channels, the reporters sought out contacts in the middle of the action: South Vietnamese officers and American field advisors like John Paul Vann who were willing to tell the ugly truth. The result was a constant battle between the Saigon correspondents and the Kennedy administration, other journalists, and even their own publishers. The only people who hated the journalists more were President Diem, his brother Nhu, and most vociferously, South Vietnam's First Lady, Madame Nhu. For two years the correspondents fought for every story and risked everything, including their lives, to get what they believed was the truth about Vietnam out to the American public.

Prochnau is clearly in awe of his protagonists, but I think he still manages to give a fair account. The correspondents are not perfect: Sheehan goofs big time in his early account of My Tho, inflating the body count from 15 to 200. Halberstam was hugely influential, but as Prochnau makes clear, he was also incorrigible, uncompromising, and had a mean temper. One of the most important points that Prochnau stresses is that these men were not anti-war (certainly not at this early stage). Men like Halberstam were ardently anti-communist, and were only angry because the government was lying about a cause that mattered so much. But even the reporters' ostensible adversaries, such as Ambassador Nolting, are given full and fair treatment. (General Harkins is the one exception, but I've never read anything that suggested he was other than incompetent, blind optimist.) In addition to these detailed characterizations, Prochnau adds a wealth of anecdotes that give the book both humor and authenticity. Particularly interesting were the stories of Marguerite Higgins and her Machiavellian ways ("innocent as a cobra"), Sheehan's obsessive 16 year struggle to write "A Bright Shining Lie," and Halberstam mouthing off to high government officials ("Bull..., General! Why are you standing here telling our friend Clurman this bull...?").

My complaints are few. The first is about Prochnau's style: he is eminently readable and well suited for the material, but sometimes his tone becomes so informal it borders on cheesy ("Vietnam was not simply exotic. It was erotic. And narcotic.") My second complaint is that Prochnau glosses over many aspects of the war and does not give a very complete picture of the complex military situation. But his story is about the journalists, so maybe this is an unfair criticism. Then let me leave it as a caveat: do not read this book to gain an in-depth understanding of the political-military situation in South Vietnam, read it to learn about the tribulations of the journalists. In some ways, this book is better suited for people who already understand the history of the era and will not be confused by Prochnau's overly-simplistic (albeit justifiably so) account of the war. That said, this is still quite an entertaining look at some very interesting characters at a crucial juncture in modern American history.

That is to say, the media, being 60 Minutes, edited the program and other matierial to suit what would be acceptable to the U.S government as to not cause the government any embarrassment or uncomfortable questions on the subject. Stevenson, unhappy with the final result, decided to quit working for 60 Minutes and wrote this book on her own with her husband William Stevenson.

This book will probably make the reader angry and suspicious of what just really has become of our U.S. soldiers that were "lost" in Vietnam and those who were taken as prisoners of war. There are multiple accounts in the book of government cover-up's, intimidation, media suppression of facts, outright lies to military dependants who lost loved ones in Vietman, and manipulation to coerce people from digging too deep to find true answers.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye contains many interviews and intelligence information gleaned from former POW's, former U.S. intelligence operatives, U.S. politicians, families of the missing, and others that has placed them at risk for retaliation and humiliation from the government.

This book will give startling examples of recent intelligence that proves Americans are still alive and being held against their will in Vietnam and what has actually been done to address the issue by our govenment in recent years (which hasn't been much). Beyond that, the reader will be given information why the govenment has refused to help bring missing men home. Namely, the "secret wars" that the United States fought in Cambodia and mostly Laos and how the wars there were financed by drug money and the spurious dealings of the CIA.

As a member of our military for 15 years now, I find myself sad, disturbed, shocked, and angered by the outrageous acts perpetrated by our government and their callous disregard for our own military men. Probably everyone who reads this book whether a part of the military or not, will find themselves feeling the say way. I also took it upon myself to research this subject more closely and have found many, many books related to this subject that back up Monica Jensen Stevenson's information and findings.

I would highly recommend this book to everyone who would like a truthful explanation on the fate of our POW's, what has been hidden from the public by our govenment, and the illegal use of power by our govenment and it's intelligence agencies.

From the government obstruction and missing files to censored testimony the book reveals that the power brokers are really in control. The well-detailed book leaves virtually no stone unturned.

The book is not only a "good read," it also contains a wealth of important information that no researcher of the Pow/MIA issue can do without. The author has gone to exhaustive lengths in the detailing of this American tragedy.

Consumed by the book from the first page, I am most impressed by the way the author is able to bring out the truth. So for those looking for truly honest answers you would do well to get this book today.

However, it is more than that. It is also a bizarre story of men left behind for the sake of political expedience and due to a number of highly classified clandestine operations, which were purposely kept from the American people. The story line begins with the sad saga of a young ex-marine who escaped from Vietnam on the late 1970s and claimed to have seen a large number of fellow American servicemen still being held by the Vietnamese. However, he was quickly charged with desertion and collaboration with the enemy, in what seemed to be a desperate effort on the part of governmental officials to bury both him and his story of American prisoners as deeply as possible from public view. From here the plot takes a number of bizzare twists and turns.

As the authors began to investigate the young marine's story, layers of deception, half-truths, and active censorship began to emerge. What they finally uncovered was an amazing tale of official deception from the highest levels in government, and also a very well organized and relentless abuse of official governmental power. This book reveals convincing evidence of American soldiers and sailors deliberately abandoned for political expedience, and of families torn apart by these acts. It also raises quite provocative questions concerning the very nature of democracy, and the corruptibility of ordinary men given such power. Similarly, they show how the use of claims of national security were used to derail efforts to learn the truth, and of an active conspiracy to keep the public from discovering the truth.

There are many of us who have long believed that Nixon and Kissinger made a pact with the devil himself in order to to extricate the United States fro the ongoing horror of Vietnam. What is truly mind-boggling is to discover just how right we were to suspect that they, and many others in the government since that time, would take such drastic action as they have to conceal these facts and to evade the truth. This is a worthwhile book, and one that demands to be read. I hope you can approach it with an open mind. Its arguments and the evidence associated with it are, in my opinion, very convincing. Enjoy!

I'd say, forget the critics and read this book. The 32 credible eyewitness accounts here are powerful, moving, and will give you a "grunt's eye view" of what it was like to be there.

This is one of several "in their own words" books which came out during the early 1980s, when America suddenly took an interest in trying to understand and get a grasp on the Vietnam War. In my opinion, this is still one of the best of those books.

Before discussing the thesis of the book lets look briefly at the war. Before the 1950's it had been easy for European Powers to conquer colonies with fairly minimal use of military power. The forces used by the Dutch, the English and the French were small although well equipped and well trained. Without going into the wrongs and the rights what went wrong in Vietnam.

What happened initially was that a local communist insurgency developed in South Vietnam. North Vietnam supplied its weapons using a port in Cambodia. The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was for whatever reason unable to deal with this insurgency. The United States sponsored a coup to change the leadership of Vietnam. Shortly after it started to send combat troops to fight alongside the ARVN and to use its air force to bomb targets in North Vietnam. The United States thus had a strong military force, which had at all times total air superiority. It should not be forgotten that the army contributed by the United States combined with the ARVN was an enormous force which at all times had technological superiority over its opponents.

Due in some degree to the success of the United States tactics and in other parts to the adventurism of the Tet Offensive the local insurgents the Viet Cong were defeated in the main by the end of the 60's. The North Vietnamese were able to keep the war going by deploying units of its regular army. The North Vietnamese regular units were able to infiltrate through Laos which at that time was in chaos and through Cambodia which was officially neutral. The casualties suffered by the North Vietnamese were staggering. The United States were not able to stem this flow despite hiring a mercenary army in Laos and sponsoring a coup in Cambodia to bring to power a government responsive to its interests.

Although the United States could have won a conventional war against North Vietnam an invasion would not have been possible. It is clear that China would have intervened as they did in Korea and they could have won a conventional war against the sort of United States forces that could be deployed in this sort of adventure.

The war showed that bombing was limited in what it could achieve. North Vietnam was a peasant subsistence economy. It was not a complex industrial nation and bombing would only really be effective if it was aimed at civilian targets. This would have been repellent politically. Taking all of these things into account it is hard to see in retrospect how the United States could have won the Vietnam war as long as North Vietnam was willing to pay a big price to keep the war going.

This knowledge however derives from hindsight. Johnson, McNamara and the others involved in turning of this conflict into an American war would not have known the immense price the North was willing to pay to win the war. In 1964 it was clear that a bombing campaign would cause considerable damage to the North setting back its economic growth. It was also clear that the commitment of ground forces would cause enormous casualties to the insurgents. Normally that would have been enough to win such a war.

Now what this book is about is a criticism of the political process that led to the war. The criticism is not one related to the morality of what happened but rather it criticizes civilian decision-makers opting for a policy of "Graduated Military Pressure". This doctrine is really a short hand description of the process that was used in the Cuban missile crisis. McNamara had played a role in this American triumph and wanted to try the same strategy. That is to make a series of demonstrations including air attacks commitments of troops till the other side gives in.

McMasters suggests that the attraction of such an approach was it allowed a slight of hand by which Johnson the President could initially win office and later concentrate government resources on his Great Society Program. He suggests that an assessment by the Joint Chiefs of staff suggested that to win in South Vietnam an army of 500,000 would be needed and that it would take five years.

The problem with the book is however something which comes out as an undercurrent in a lot of American foreign policy writing. That is the myth of American omnipotence. That is that if there is a loss or a set back, rather than such a thing being perhaps inevitable it is due to a mistake or a miscalculation. Thus after the take over of the communists in China in 1949 Truman was accused of losing China, when it is clear that America simply would not have been able to prevent it.

This book falls into the same trap of suggesting that in the mid 60's it would be possible to make a clear prediction about the outcome of the Vietnam War and to develop a measured military policy. There simply wasn't as the critical variable the response of the North Vietnamese and how much punishment they would be willing to take was not clear.

Despite the problems with the basic thesis of the book it is an interesting work based on detailed analysis of recently available material. A must read for anyone interested in the subject.

For example, McMaster's describes how McNamara and Taylor misrepresented the JCS concerns over the strategy of graduated response. They also deliberately distorted the Khanh's opinion that South Vietnam required a strong response. Johnson, Taylor and McNamara also gave the impression that no decision had been made on a Vietnam strategy to stall any public criticism. McNamara and Taylor were able to co-opt and suppress JCS criticism by encouraging parochialism between the services and providing favors to them in return for no public condemnation. Most who have led soldiers will probably consider the facts described within this book as criminal.

My one criticism of the book rests in its clearly biased thesis. Beginning with the title, McMaster's shows his one sided opinion, yet rigorously substantiates it through detailed research. Had he simply presented the facts, without characterizing them as lies and deliberate machinations of the system, he would have presented a more powerful case. The reader could base his or her own conclusions upon an individual interpretation. Instead, McMaster's shows his predisposition from the beginning, immediately creating suspicion within the reader. Other than this one criticism, the book clearly merits attention by anyone interested in Vietnam, the military, or presidential politics.

Highly recommended for the military and political professionals.

Using newly available archival and other historical materials, the author argues quite persuasively that both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were seriously misled and mis-served as to the status of ongoing efforts through obfuscations and deliberate deception on the part of individuals such as Dean Rusk, William Westmoreland, and Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense in both Kennedy's and Johnson's administration (see my review of McNamara's book). Thus, Kennedy died in late 1963 believing the situation in Vietnam to be much more constrained and careful than it actually was. With Kennedy's departure from the scene in late 1963, events began to move much more quickly and fatefully toward our blind involvement in a situation we neither appreciated the complexity of nor had any real strategy to deal with. In this sense, Lyndon Johnson became the unwitting dupe of self-interested efforts on the part of Rusk, McNamara, and the Joint Chiefs to massively escalate the war, eventually employing over half a million men in country to try to defeat the communist insurgency.

At each step of the way along the tortuous route into and the quagmire of Vietnam, a quite deliberate campaign of self-serving lies and deceptions was used to deliberately and callously escalate a war that many privately understood could never be meaningfully won. This is a wonderfully written book, and the author's no-nonsense narrative style is lends itself well to debunking the notion that the military were caught in a bind by civilians like Rusk and McNamara. On the contrary, they were willing and often-enthusiastic co-conspirators in the single most disastrous series of military decisions ever made by this country. McMaster writes with authority and candor, and deals with a whole range of issues, complexions, and countervailing situations with aplomb, honesty and verve. He makes the otherwise inexplicable series of decisions to descend into the national madness of the Vietnam War all too understandable and human. And while he does not specifically broach the issue, I still believe that Robert McNamara, General William Westmoreland, and a number of others should be tried as war criminals for crimes against humanity; after all, otherwise to try Serbians and Croats for their detestable deeds in the former Yugoslavia is utter hypocrisy), I believe this book will quickly become one of the standard texts for helping us to understand how the ritual abuse of power by officials not democratically elected can itself become an anti-democratic force profoundly affecting not only the lives of our citizens, but people everywhere in the developing world.

Hopefully books like this will help us to come to understand and accept the reality of what the American government did in our name to Vietnam. We need to understand how we came to export our darkest emotional suspicions and a sense of national paranoia about a monolithic communist threat into an incredibly murderous campaign that almost exterminated a whole generation of Vietnamese by way of indiscriminate carpet bombing, deliberate use of environmentally horrific defoliates, and creation of so-called "free-fire" zones, where everything and anything moving was assumed to be hostile, whether it be man, woman, child, or beast. All of this was visited on the world in general and the Vietnamese in particular for little or no reason other than the extremely aggressive and ultimately dangerous can-do macho world-view of the power elite. The sooner we recognize this, the better it will be for us as citizens of a democratic government, and the more likely it is we will stop the next set of so- inclined bureaucratic monsters from acting in this way again.

Duly noted are the risks to life and limb (and appendages)he must be aware of during his adventure. These lessons are given to him by his good natured guides who taunt and tease the overweight white (very white) man. All in good fun, the banter flows both ways. Descriptions of their meals may take a tough stomach on the part of the reader. He spared the reader nothing when it came to describing the delights of dinnertime. The recollection of some repasts, especially the gourmet monster lizard meals were among the more memorable (unfortunately). It was amazing what they scrounged up to eat. I will not spoil all the little surprises they had at mealtime, you will know soon enough when you read the book!

Aside from the culinary experience, I found the travel journey delightfully funny and educational. While I know this is NOT the kind of trip I would care to have, I appreciate that the author had the guts to do it. At times, he doubted his stamina, but that is what made the novel work - he was a regular guy doing something outrageously difficult, not to mention dangerous. I can see that this kind of adventure would appeal to many others, but for me, I took his trip in an armchair where I was safe and knew what I was eating for lunch!

He is a charming writer, hooking the reader with teasing references. I admit I learned alot about their culture and some of their more sensitive political and social issures. A quick read, I went out and bought more of his books and look forward to a similar experience.

This is a fascinating character study, one that poses McNamara as an isolated, antisocial figure more at home with the comfortable fictions of number crunching than with the quicksilver facts of everyday reality. His rise from Harvard to the Air Force to Ford won him wide acclaim as a "no-nonsense can-do" kind of guy, and this reputation for being the best and the brightest resulted in him being named Secretary of Defense by Jack Kennedy in what was likely the most disastrous public appointments of the last half of the 20th century. He force-fit his own conceptual perceptions onto the way the Department of Defense assessed itself and its engagements, so that quantitative measures came to supplant local experience and field judgment in the conduct of day-to-day operations in Vietnam. Thus, the most venial sorts of bean-counting by way of number of sorties, bomb tonnage dropped, and enemy body counts became the "meaningful measures of merit" (an actual term, not one I am concocting) the "whiz-kids" at the Pentagon used to determine where they stood in terms of the ultimate victory.

Meanwhile, thousands of American boys, as well as countless Vietnamese of every age, sex and description were lost in so-called "collateral damage". Engaged in the circular reasoning only a true believer in quantitative reasoning could marshal, McNamara fought to maintain the perception the war was being won, even when his raging intellect knew otherwise. Yet even after he recognized the reality of the situation, this self-described man of conscience could not bring himself to do the right and honorable thing. Rather than tell the truth and expose the outrageous situation in Vietnam, he remained silent, allowing many more thousand of young Americans and Vietnamese to die. It is this failure of conscience for which he should have been prosecuted, for his willing complicity in the continuing bloodbath long after he knew the war could not be won and that our efforts there would result only in further loss of life.

The book is also singular in its counter position of McNamara's evolution throughout the sixties and early seventies with five others so dramatically linked with the progress of the war in Vietnam; four Americans and a young Vietnamese citizen, all of whom were fatefully affected by McNamara's moral cowardice and abject failure to act or speak out. Most poignant for me was the story of one former Vietnam veteran turned artist who actually went berserk on a ferry when he discovered McNamara to be a fellow passenger. Finally, the author deals quite convincingly with the self-serving arguments McNamara himself has used to deflect criticism from himself, showing how one-sided and inconsistent they are with the public record. This is a terrific book, and one that provocatively revisits the painful and mind-numbing consequences that the terrible events of the sixties had for so many ordinary Americans. I recommend this book, although I must caution that reading it is hardly for the squeamish or faint of heart. It cuts deep into the heart of darkness that was so central to our venture in Vietnam, and faithfully recalls the depths of heartache and tragedy that piteous, misadventured action caused.

The details of McNamara's disillusionment with the war are fascinating reading, and serve to indict -- and convict -- McNamara on what many think is his greatest crime: he didn't speak out against the war after he was removed from office. Hendrickson suggests, compellingly, that if McNamara had campaigned against the war after leaving office, using all his intelligence and persuasiveness, that today there may have been a "McNamara Prize," similar in stature to the Nobel Peace Prize.

The exotic setting and romantic story so impressed the wives of both Rogers and Hammerstein that they convinced their husbands to write a musical based on the book. And thus we get the musical The King and I, plus several movies, most recently one with Jodie Foster.

Landon wrote other novels (Never Dies the Dream) based on her missionary experience but never achieved the same greatness as in Anna and the King of Siam. This is a well structured novel, with a lot of drama. The death scene of the Fa-ying is incredibly touching. Anna is believable; sometimes annoyingly persistent, other times selfless and very very brave.

The actual writins of Anna Leonowens are also available. It's fun to read Landon's book and then the source material she used. You may agree with me that Landon's skill as a novelist took Anna's story and made it unforgettable.

Other testimony suggests that Colby was a bit disingenuous in these 1971 hearings. At one point Congressman Ogden Reid pulled out a list signed by a CIA officer that named VC cadre rounded up in a particular action in 1967. "It is of some interest that on this list, 33 of the 61 names were women and some persons were as young as 11 and 12," noted Reid.

Valentine spent four years researching this name-intensive book, and managed to interview over 100 Phoenix participants. If post-Vietnam America had ever looked into a mirror, this book might have become a bestseller. Instead it was published just as the Gulf War allowed us to resume business as usual, and went virtually unnoticed.

(Daniel Brandt is founder and president of Public Information Research, Inc.)

"Trail of Tears," by John Ehle, is a beautifully written book which educates and entertains, uplifts and depresses, frustrates and astonishes. The reader becomes painfully aware that the history we were taught in school virtually ignored an important part of the American story. The true nature of the Cherokee is exposed and examined through Ehle's obviously dedicated research, while throughout the book, the tone is less that of a documentary, and more that of a story being told, gripping the listener with each new development.

Heroes are exposed as miscreants, and statesmen as traitors to principles we all hold dear. The reader comes to realize just how close the Cherokee came to having an entirely different destiny than the one to which they finally succumbed, and becomes intimately acquainted with the characters and causes involved therein.

The book is a fast read, an eye-opener, and contains a story that all people, and especially all Americans, should know and pass on for generations to come.

In Trail of Tears, John Ehle (who is, as far as I can tell, non-Native) sketches the people and events that led to the infamous Trail of Tears, the removal of the Cherokee Nation to "Indian Territory" (primarily Arkansas and Oklahoma) where they would "never" be bothered by whites again. The focus is on the "Treaty Party," consisting of Ridge, his son John Ridge, and his nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie, along with Moravian, Methodist, and other missionaries sent to convert the Cherokees to Christianity and who are caught up in Cherokee/state/federal politics.

Ehle's bias is evident in the title; the "rise" of the Cherokees is the effort, not wholly embraced by the Nation, of adapting to European-American culture, language, religion, and even livelihood (e.g., Cherokee hunting is uncivilized, whereas the adoption of American farming is preferable). The story begins with some background and the birth of a Cherokee man named Ridge not too long before the American Revolutionary War. The white impact has already begun to be felt, as one of Ridge's forebears is white, and he and his family are driven into the wilds by the war.

After the war ends, the new Americans have one craving-land and more land. A gold strike in Georgia adds to the fever. The Cherokee, along with the Choctaw, Creek, and other southern tribes, are perceived as "wasting" land that their white counterparts should be entitled to. From this point on, it is clear that the Juggernaut of American expansionism and greed will displace the Native peoples. The question is only how and when.

Meanwhile, Ridge, who will not convert to Christianity but who wholeheartedly adopts many white ways for himself and his children, becomes not only a wealthy plantation owner but a leader of the Cherokee Nation. His son becomes an attorney, while Boudinot becomes the first editor of the Cherokee newspaper, The Phoenix. Both young men marry white New Englanders they meet while at school. Ridge and his family and allies are the first to see the writing on the wall-that the Cherokees will be removed; it is a matter of whether it is "voluntarily" on their own terms in their own time or involuntarily.

The principal chief of the Cherokee, a Cherokee-Scot named John Ross, is portrayed as a man in a state of denial. It is never clear how he thought the Cherokee could overcome the overwhelming tide of white intrusion without bloodshed and without losing. He and his followers blame the Ridge faction for selling the Cherokee out when they sign the Treaty of 1835 that puts the seal on the removal. They feel that they can continue to "negotiate," not realising that Andrew Jackson has set the tone and the terms-and that the federal government under his leadership has loaded the die. Ehle is no John Ross fan; when the inevitable finally happens and the Cherokee are removed, Ross sends them via the lengthy, dangerous, time-consuming land route, resulting in hundreds if not thousands of deaths (the number remains unknown), while Ross and his family use the quicker, less treacherous water routes.

There are several dichotomies in this history-the Upper Towns vs. the Lower Towns; the full-bloods vs. those with white ancestors/family; the uneducated (mostly full-bloods, according to Ehle) vs. the educated (John Ridge, Boudinot); the federal government vs. state government (a dichotomy that would be resolved violently through the Civil War). A forest/mountain vs. town dichotomy is also evident. In any case, anything that speaks of the way the Cherokee used to be is seen as "primitive," while Cherokee adoption of white ways is lauded by their neighbors. In fact, this is seen as the heart of the problem; the Cherokee people are pliable, are willing to adapt, are willing to live like the whites-and in the end are treated no better than their Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole counterparts. Ehle includes much contemporary commentary on this particular irony.

This book has been said to be controversial because it shows the wealthier Cherokees, like Ridge, John Ridge, and John Ross as owning African slaves. The Cherokees tried to marry their own ways with that of the European-Americans; they had always had slaves, usually captives from other tribes. But it is clear that the majority of Cherokees were poor, did not own plantations, and did not exploit slaves.

Trail of Tears is an excellent snapshot of a particular situation and will be eye opening to those who are not familiar with the story of the southern tribes and their interactions with the burgeoning American population. Ehle includes a wealth of primary sources, such as letters, journal excerpts, military orders, and the like, that serve to enrich the story. This history lesson is told in a story/fiction format enhanced by contemporary writings that keep it interesting, lively, and personal. Ehle's biases are clear but do not detract from this book as a history of a moment in time when the fate of a nation was decided. This is an excellent supplement to any broader history of the Trail of Tears.

Diane L. Schirf, 29 April 2001.

I do not recommend this work as an introduction to the Trail of Tears. You should have a good grasp of the people and events leading to North Georgia's Trail of Tears before attempting to read the book since Ehle frequently does not introduce minor characters, and does not spend much time introducing the major characters and events.

The book is well researched but controversial, since there are essentially two sides to the story, that of Major Ridge and that of John Ross. This gives a balanced presentation of both sides, although I suspect that fans of Major Ridge may disagree.

Thirthy years after the war I think a couple of things are clear;

1. The US should never have entered the conflict on this scale.

2. The North Vietnamese regime which took over after 1975 was, and is, one of the most oppressive in recent history.

So why doesn't the author spend a single page of analysis on why the Government brushed aside all doubt on the validity of the domino theory? Why doesn't he go into the reasons recommendations from people like Ball and Bundy were never properly discussed? After reading 300 pages this total lack of reflection started to be very disturbing.

Furthermore, what on earth does move the author to write in such sympathetic way about the North Vietnamese. I would certainly grant that the "ordinary soldier"in the NVA and VC believed in what they were doing. The Politburo however was nothing more than your ordinary run of the mill bunch of communist power players, ruthless and on a totally different level of ethics. Ho Chi Minh was not a Ghandi and Giap certainly not a Bolivar!

The replay of conversations becomes downright laughable when e.g. a discussion between Mao and some Vietnames leaders is described where Mao says that the leaders should live a sober life and be an example for their people. I can't imagine any trustworthy source for such quotes and to take interviews with senior Vietnames officials as a source is nothing more than naive.

I am not an American and therefore do not suffer the same trauma from this terrible conflict as many US citizens, but I am certain that thirty years after the war the American people deserves a lot more than this utterly unbalanced view.

- the author often used the Vietnamese first name as last name, including in the references. Some Vietnamese words were misspelled (for example, Chien Vich Phuong Hoang - the Phoenix program - should be Chien Dich Phuong Hoang.)

- the author interpersed the maneuverings of L. B. Johnson, H. Kissinger, Le Duan, Nguyen Cao Ky with individual stories of people who actually carried out their policies. Most South Vietnamese references are through published autobiographies or personal accounts of events, as opposed to author interviews. Therefore the story of the South Vietnam tends to be personalized by the Americans, the Vietnamese Communists, lacking personal views of pro-Republic of Vietnam individuals at similar levels. There are a few, but some of them, such as Tran Kim Tuyen, who was one time a SVN power broker, played little part in the South Vietnam for a long time. It's regrettable, because the author did try to be balanced.

The book is great - the overall feeling is one of dismay and betrayal when you look at the course of events outlined by Langguth. As the author concludes, the American leadership let down both the Vietnamese people and the American people. Re-election politics governed the behaviour of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon - both in terms of ignoring the reality on the ground as well as in terms of committing American air and ground forces. The latter had the effect of taking American lives, which is when the war became truly unpopular (and took thousands of Vietnamese lives). People like George Ball and McGeorge Bundy came around to the view that the war had no merits or interest for America early on, and there was no way they could express these views without losing the ear of the President they served.

I have read quite a bit of Kissinger, and for someone who has a lot of respect for Kissinger, Langguth's views on him come as a surprise. The view that emerges is that Kissinger essentially implemented the starting point of the negotiations arrived at by Harriman and Le Duc Tho in 1968 under Johnson. This is where the dismay comes in - five years later, the end-result was the same, and Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Langguth's representation of decisionmaking at the highest levels in the US makes for fascinating reading. The style of decision-making is collegial or chaotic depending on the president, and the impact of the president's style on the process comes out very well. Kennedy's youthful style and intellect, Johnson's homespun political smarts, and Nixon's insecure and paranoid approach - have their impact on the outcome and this is accentuated by the author. Johnson's earthy humour makes you laugh.. The internecine politicking between the members of the Cabinet would be useful education for any student of American politics. It would help understand why a man like Colin Powell continues to serve an admininstration that clearly has little time for him.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.