By Neil Sheehan, Hendrick Smith, E. W. Kenworthy, and Fox Butterfield

Quadrangle Books, 1971

Racehorse Publishing, 2017

Paperback, 810 pages

I’ve only just begun this book, but I knew when I saw it on Amazon Prime that I had to have it. It concerns me that no longer do school curriculums include history like this, nor include it in required reading; education in the United States is subpar and, in my opinion, an ongoing, dangerous situation.

How many students ever even hear the name Daniel Ellsberg, much less know who he worked for?

And who knows that the Vietnam War actually began with President Harry S. Truman?

How about this: Just having signed an armistice with North Korea (that means, basically,  a ceasefire — the Korean “Conflict” has never ended, thus the occasional rifle fire across the DMZ), Truman saw the French losing their war in French Indochina and became very concerned that communism was a real, growing threat. So did President Eisenhower, especially with China’s inevitable influence in Asia due to Mao’s takeover. This president followed Truman’s funding of the French, which failed, but with money supporting South Vietnam. From there, Kennedy and finally Johnson kept the rigid anti-communist stance going, until Johnson blew up the situation and began the conflict we know today as the Vietnam War, even if, as had not happened since World War Two, congressionl, declared war was never going to happen. The reason may seem murky, but it’s really just a matter of politics: would you want to be voted out of office because you voted for a declaration of war? Also, some warned that Ho Chi Minh was popular, while in the States, a war might not be.

Somewhere behind these presidents, the National Security Council had too much power and became instrumental in frightening everyone in the next two administrations that, when communism had sufficient roots in Indochina, it would invariably spread: Thailand, then Japan, then westward. This was the beginning of what would come to be called the “domino theory” and the NSC was influential in the U.S. breaking ranks with nations which followed the Geneva Accords of 1954.

That agreement basically divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, until elections could be held. The U.S., in funding first the French in its war and threatening to withhold all aid to France if it withdrew from Indochina, then by sending aid directly to South Vietnam, was now locked into what would become the Second Indochina War–this one between the United States and North Vietnam.

It was true that Ho Chi Minh sent letters to Washington asking for help in reunification of Vietnam, but there is no reason to believe Washington ever answered. It was feared that his connections to communist individuals would end in disaster and that the United States would be a pawn in funding a communist takeover.

Ike wasn’t keen on that idea, nor would Truman have been. So Ho Chi Minh and his Vietminh soldiers fought for unification without aid from the United States, and on that point, I believe we made a mistake. The man had lived and been educated in the United States and even worked as a baker in New York City. His request for help could have been turned into a friendly relationship with the United States.

But then, and I’m not sure of the exact timing, the U.S. had already bucked the Geneva Accord and, despite early promises to abide by it, were funding the south.

This is exactly where it gets sticky, because from the first transfer of monies the United States was committed to everything that followed, and made death and destruction impossible to avoid.

The war was eventually understood by almost everyone to be a proxy conflict–the NVA regulars were funded and armed by Russia and China, the South by the U.S. and, probably during Eisenhower’s administration, by U.S. military “advisors” who, according to the book, may really have been covert special forces. They, at one point before Hanoi was evacuated and left to communist forces, were supposed to damage the north’s infrastructure including oil reserves. It did not work as planned. The North was not crippled at all.

Why is it that when the covert ops of the U.S. are exposed, they always appear to be silly or to have been bungled?

At one point, the O.S.S., forerunner to the C.I.A., was involved. Afterwards, things took on a circus character and I don’t believe we have ever recovered.

In dissemination of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, Ellsberg was embroiled in a murky case that went to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that the New York Times could continue publishing, yet it was Ellsberg and not The Times who would be a prime target for the Nixon administration. Nixon had begun his political career with his success at hounding Whittaker Chambers to produce proof that Alger Hiss, who had been a key figure in the birth of the United Nations, was a communist. When the former produced that proof–called “the pumpkin papers”–it was too late to try Hiss for anything but perjury. But he was convicted. Nixon was one representative who would not let Hiss go. And that led to sheer madness.

In 1971 Nixon, as president, took a special interest in Ellsberg, whom he figured was more than a leaker; he must be a “commie spy”. And since the Pentagon Papers traced the Vietnam War back through Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman but was completed before Nixon took office and had no bearing on him personally, nobody can make sense of his mission to have operatives break into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to steal his file or alter it (to make him into a psychopath).

The file was not in the office. Nixon, himself an enormously insecure, troubled man, would not accept failure or defeat; therefore, Watergate. He couldn’t learn from mistakes. But that’s another story.

The debate over the war in Vietnam, whether it should have been better executed, or ever executed at all, is one without resolution until one thing is taken into account: who we were fighting.

The Second Indochina War had restrictions on American troops that, to soldiers, never made sense. Boundaries. Rules of engagement never even thought of by the NVA or the Vietcong regulars.

Guerilla warfare and an enemy that never gave up was impossible to defeat in terrain so hostile that if disease, deadly snakes and insects didn’t interfere with the nebulous mission, then the heat and an acclimated and ruthless enemy did. The time spent on Search and Destroy missions, usually months at a time, had men in the bush longer than most soldiers in World War Two had spent on the lines.

The conclusion I’ve made has been that, no matter what the National Security Council said, the war in Vietnam–the second Indochina War–should never have taken place; that if the Geneva Accord had been followed, Vietnam would have simply reunified on its own, and perhaps Indochina need not have been turned into the bloody mess it did (including Pol Pot’s depravity); and in the United States, cooler heads would eventually have prevailed. How it goes from there, we never got to see, and I believe it is a pity.

The soldiers of the NVA, Vietcong and later the Vietcong guerillas not formally attached to organized units were fierce, brutal, and rarely gave quarter except to sweep soldiers of the opposition into horrifying traps and killing zones. They were resourceful, cunning and would never have quit.

Following the war, there was a saying: “We weren’t supposed to win”. But that’s hardly true. Leadership often committed troops and air elements to full-on campaigns, only to have second thoughts and recall those forces or to halt bombing in the north as communist leaders teased peacetalks, which they never meant and used the time to consolidate resources, gather materiel, and refresh troops.

The American pilot, soldier, marine, medic, doctor or nurse, all did outstanding work in the harshest conditions, and with few exceptions, were honorable and dedicated. And when word of my lai got out, America called its own heroes “scum”, “baby killer” and worse.

Yet the details of atrocities by their opposing forces went through deaf ears. Even now, atrocities committed by the NVA, VC and even the ARVN rarely get the treatment in writing that they so richly deserve. The United States has never waged a war that it intended to lose. Horrible decisions and, more grossly, indecision, ineptitude in military leaders who could not manage the concept of war without front lines and therefore went by “body count” (literally, counting dead bodies which often included civilian noncombatants) was war by attrition, not a good way to measure success.

The conflict need never have involved the United States, but hysteria over the “Red Menace” drove Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson to it. Nixon, the infamous “commie” hunter, made everything worse.

This book is good for page-turning late-night sessions sequestered from muggy weather inside your home. I would not take it to the beach; you’re there more to tan than burn, or watch bikinis or speedos, whichever you like. Beaches are for voyeur sessions, and the sun will be setting by the time your stomach growls for dinner.

My rating: ten out of ten. Perfect read, well done and historic.

You can’t ask for better.