Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did [Paperback]

Loren Baritz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801859530 | ISBN-13: 978-0801859533 | Publication Date: June 3, 1998

In a probing look at the myths of American culture that led us into the Vietnam quagmire, Loren Baritz exposes our national illusions: the conviction of our moral supremacy, our assumption that Americans are more idealistic than other people, and our faith in a technology that supposedly makes us invincible. He also reveals how Vietnam changed American culture today, from the successes and failures of the Washington bureaucracy to the destruction of the traditional military code of honor.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Baritz's emphasis on the underlying assumptions that motivated American policy makers and the vigor and unconcealed emotion with which he writes give these pages an impact they would not otherwise have... It reminds us with eloquence, power and passion that war is a form of intercourse with other peoples that unveils the deepest assumptions that a nation makes about itself and its relationship to the outside world.

(Los Angeles Times )

The first full-length and scholarly account of why we got into Vietnam in the first place, why we fought as barbarously as the Japanese in Manchuria or the Germans in Poland, and why we deserved to lose it—indeed why we did have to lose it if we were to find any kind of ultimate peace.

(Henry Steele Commager, Amherst College )

A provocative and informative book written in the easy style of a seasoned teacher. One must wonder what might have been had Backfire been written two decades earlier.

(Paul Bucha, Medal of Honor, Vietnam )

This remarkable book provides a way of looking at the Vietnam War that is both intellectually complex and extremely moving.

(Susan Sontag )

Baritz reminds us of how confident we were in America's invincibility during those pre-Vietnam War days. He looks closely into 'the invention of South Vietnam' during the Kennedy years, and he examines the body counting war at home—the bureaucratic and psychological effort to convince ourselves that we were winning, and would surely win. Backfire reveals brilliantly why the lessons of Vietnam are so difficult to learn.

(Martin J. Sherwin History Book Club )

About the Author

Loren Baritz has served as chairman of the Department of History at the University of Rochester, provost and acting chancellor at the State University of New York, and provost at the University of Massachusetts. He is the author of The Servants of Power, City on a Hill, and The Culture of the Twenties.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (June 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801859530
• ISBN-13: 978-0801859533
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and provocative analysis of the U.S. role in Vietna, May 12, 2000

By 

Geoff Pietsch (Gainesville, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (Paperback)

The subtitle of "Backfire" - "A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We did" - sums up the contents well. But it fails to suggest the great evil and ignorance which Baritz's scholarly analysis reveals. Example: G.I.s spent a full year in Vietnam; officers were rotated in and out every six months. Reason: Officers needed to "punch their tickets" (i.e. serve in Vietnam) if they wanted to rise up the ladder of promotion. So military policy was formulated based on that priority, not on the obvious fact that just as officers were becoming really experienced combat leaders, they were sent home and replaced by inexperienced officers. The resulting cost of American lives amounts to a war crime on the part of senior military leaders who put the policy into effect, a war crime against their own men! Another example: U.S. soldiers derided Vietnamese men as "fags" because they saw them holding hands. They were ignorant of Vietnamese culture in which such conduct has nothing to do with sexual preference. Thus, "why fight for a bunch of fags" became a prevalent attitude. Baritz's book is different than almost any other on Vietnam - and more thoughtful and thought-provoking.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard book to put down, January 26, 2004

By 

Robert Wynkoop (Washington State) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (Paperback)

This is a remarkable book that I found very hard to put down. If you are interested in discovering why we went to war, and how we lost it, Backfire if for you. The author avoids the usual mantra of both the left and the right and gives us what may be the most comprehensive analysis of this war written to date. Although I will take issue with some of the authors assumptions, this book should be must reading for the politicians and military who wage war, and for parents who send their children to fight wars.

It is difficult to find fault with the author's contentions that we fought the wrong war. Our enemy fought a political and psychological war, a war against American culture; whereas we fought a conventional war and were trapped by our own cultural assumptions of American invincibility. It is the author premise that American foreign policy was, and is, driven by our cultural myth of America as the City on a Hill. Baritz observes that as Americans we see ourselves as the new Israel, God's chosen people. The author contends that because of this myth the American people see themselves as a moral example to the world, Baritz wrote: It means that we are a Chosen People, each of whom, because of Gods favor and presence, can smite one hundred of our heathen enemies hip and thigh. . . . We believe that the people of the world really want to be like us, regardless of what they or their political leaders say. So Baritz takes the Ugly American approach to our foreign policy.

In a sense, he is right. Our belief in our own invincibility, and that the Vietnamese people wanted to be like us and welcome us drove the war. It was inconceivable to us that they would not share our values, applaud our intentions or embrace our presence. It led us to trust in our guns and to our failure to state our national objectives for this war.

Here are a few of the remarkable insights the author gives us:
There was a tendency for American war planners and policy makers to think the job was done when their plans and policies were approved, leaving no one to monitor whether or not what they decided was effective. He points out that we supported a regime that had little popular support and our conventional military tactics made the problem worse because bombing, artillery, napalm and Agent Orange would wound and kill the very people whose support we needed. After Tet, the Viet Cong insurgency was defeated and the Phoenix program of the assassination of Viet Cong leaders had decimated the leadership of the Viet Cong. By 1970 General Giap had concluded the only way the North could win the war was through regular war, the very kind of big-unit engagement American Generals had hoped for. But by this time, the political war at home was lost. Yes, the press was partially to blame for our defeat. The constant stream of defeatism by the Press, especially during and after the Tet offensive cannot be underestimated in turning American opinion against the war.

Baritz takes issue with the claim that the war could have been won if the military had been allowed to fight it differently. Not because we could not win, but because the American culture at the time precluded such a victory. Vietnam was not perceived as a  threat to American, there was no anger in the American public to support such a war.  In the end, the North Vietnamese understood American culture, they believed they could win if they did not lose. All they had to do was to outlast American patience. The Americans war leaders believed that they would lose if they did not win. The failure to achieve quick and decisive victory doomed the American war effort.

Has the America changed? Are we now willing to do what we were incapable of doing in the 1960's? that is to wage an effective war? Or has the American public, like that of ancient Rome as the barbarians gathered on their frontiers, grown tired of defending its freedom? Only time will tell.  

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not balanced or unbiased, full of the author's opinions, June 3, 2011

By 

Stephen Bang (Overland Park, KS, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made Us Fight the Way We Did (Paperback)

Backfire, by Loren Baritz

This book is not balanced or unbiased, and is full of the author's opinions, often unsupported, but it does contain some useful information. Readers who reject the notion of American exceptionalism or who strongly opposed America's involvement in Vietnam will like this book a lot. Younger people who did not live through the Vietnam War era and who have not read extensively about it should read this book with a very large grain of salt, not always trusting the opinions and constantly questioning the facts presented. In the preface, Baritz says "The time may come when enough scar tissue will have formed to permit a cooler detachment, but not yet, not for me. I also believe that passion is an appropriate response to war... The emotional involvement of the author may enlighten as well as distort." (page 15) The first 53 pages and the last 30 pages contain a lot of emotion and bias. The first chapter includes two atrocities committed by Americans, which illustrate the attitudes that Baritz believed to be common among American soldiers. It argues that all Americans were ignorant of Vietnam, that they did not feel the need to learn about Vietnam because they assumed that Vietnamese had about the same values and desires as Americans, that Americans wrongly see themselves as moral leaders of the world, Americans were over-confident in their technology and sophisticated weapons, and bureaucratic behaviors shaped events. The last chapter is cynical, pessimistic, and depressing. Baritz repeats the ideas about myths, technology, and bureaucracy, and discusses how they impact government, business and academia and how they related to the cold war conflict between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in 1985. In between, there is a lower level of emotion and bias, and more factual narrative of events.

You first sense the bias on the back cover of the paperback version. "'The first full-length and scholarly account of why we got into Vietnam in the first place, why we fought as barbarously as the Japanese in Manchuria or the Germans in Poland, and why we deserved to lose it - indeed why we did have to lose it if we were to find any kind of ultimate peace.' - Henry Steele Commager, Amherst College." I am trying to think what justifies this statement - Baritz does not say things like that in the book.

In the first paragraph of Preface, 1998, Baritz says that Colin Powell "served two tours in Vietnam, first as a major in the Americal division and, long after Vietnam, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Bush administration." It is staggering, how wrong this statement is. On page 80 of My American Journey, Colin Powell writes that in 1963, on his first Vietnam tour "I was to serve as advisor to the four-hundred-man 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry Regiment, of the 1st Division." This was an Army of the Republic of Vietnam unit. The next 24 pages describe his experiences with the ARVN. On page 85 he says he was a captain on this first Vietnam tour, not a major. On pages 130-150, he describes his second tour of duty in Vietnam, which was with the 23d Infantry Division, known as the Americal. Baritz gives quotes from My American Journey, so there is the impression that he read it, but it is not possible to read this book and think that the Powell's first Vietnam tour was with the Americal division. It's hard to tell whether Baritz really meant to say what he said, or if he was just being sloppy.

In the second paragraph of Preface, 1998, Baritz says "These [McNamara and Powell] and other memoirs center on our monumental ignorance of the enemy." I have not read McNamara's memoirs, but Powell's book does not center on this ignorance of the enemy. It has 22 chapters, and two of them are about Powell's time in Vietnam. These chapters mainly are a narrative of his experiences. At times, he is a bit cynical or critical of the tactics and strategy used to fight the war, but does not mention our knowledge or ignorance of the enemy. In the concluding pages of his chapter about his second Vietnam tour, he is philosophical in assessing the war. On page 147 he says "Given the terrain, the kind of war the NVA and VC were fighting, and the casualties they were willing to take, no defensible level of U.S. involvement would have been enough." "I recently reread Bernard Fall's book on Vietnam, Street Without Joy. Fall makes painfully clear that we had almost no understanding of what we had gotten ourselves into." This is the closest Powell comes to saying that we had a monumental ignorance of the enemy. Powell is describing many factors affecting our ability to win the war, and knowledge of the enemy is only one of them, and he does not center on it at all.

On page 21, Chapter One, God's Country and American Know-How, Baritz gives two quotes of Gen Taylor and Gen Westmoreland, both stating that Americans valued human life more than the Vietnamese Communists did. Baritz calls this bigotry. This is a very subjective and disputable judgment. The North Vietnam Army had a popular and well-known slogan, "born in the North to die in the South." (The Battle of An Loc by James H. Willbanks, p 84.) That slogan, together with the willingness to both kill civilians and to accept their own casualties, indicate a low value of human life, without any need to attribute it to bigotry. Besides the name-calling, I seriously dispute his analysis: "This bigotry was a result of the Americans' ability to use technology to protect our own troops while the North Vietnamese, too poor to match our equipment, were forced to rely on people, their only resource. ... Nations fight with whatever they have; and, what we had was not enough to compensate for our cultural ignorance." This was not a war of necessity for North Vietnam. They could have accepted peace. They chose to kill civilians in South Vietnam and accepted the huge numbers deaths of their own troops in their effort to conquer South Vietnam. On page 248, Baritz returns to this theme: "But, being a poor country, not because they valued life less than the rest of the world, North Vietnam was forced to rely on manpower, not on technology which they did not have." Why "forced"? Could they not have chosen to stop sending their troops to the South?

On page 26, Chapter One, Baritz quotes Herman Melville and John Winthrop (leader on the Mayflower). Winthrop said, as they were crossing the Atlantic, "We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantations [settlements], the Lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Then Baritz says "The myth of America as a city on a hill implies that America is a moral example to the rest of the world that will presumably keep its attention riveted on us. It means that we are a Chosen People, each of whom, because of God's favor and presence, can smite one hundred of our heathen enemies hip and thigh." Much of chapter one is an argument that Americans view America as the city on a hill, that it is a myth, and that it prevented American leaders from understanding Vietnam and kept them from making good decisions. Throughout the book, Baritz mentions the "city on a hill" phrase at least a dozen times, but never gives any indication that he has any idea of where the phrase comes from or what it was originally meant. It comes from the Bible, Matthew 5:14-16, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Baritz thought he was an expert on American myths, but he missed a lot on "city on a hill." The Christian church is a city on a hill. Winthrop was addressing the Christians on the Mayflower. Most Christians today would not embrace the idea that "ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies" because that part of the Winthrop quote is not Biblical. The real "city on a hill" problem is that sometimes American Christians do not properly distinguish between the church and the American nation. Baritz has a lot of confidence in his reader. He never disproves the idea of "city on a hill", he just describes it and assumes that his reader will agree that it is wrong.

Baritz is totally opposed to the idea that America can give moral leadership to the world, that America is more moral than any other country. On page 30, he quotes Robert Kennedy, in 1968, "At stake is not simply the leadership of our party, and even our own country, it is our right to the moral leadership of this planet." Baritz says that Kennedy's staff was horrified by this language, and he says that it proved that the "city myth" was still alive and well.

Baritz has an odd obsession for the religion of the politicians, if they are Protestant, and especially if they are Puritan or Presbyterian. On page 34, Woodrow Wilson is identified as the son of a Presbyterian minister. On page 37, he mentions "the peculiarities of American Protestant nationalism." On page 38 "This is the Protestant face of diplomacy and war." On page 75, "When he [John Foster Dulles] was in doubt he could always retreat for guidance to his Presbyterian pantry of moral sustenance." On page 78 we learn that Dulles' father was a Presbyterian minister. On page 132, quoting President Johnson, "'We should seek to turn the tide not only of battle but of belief,' a typically Protestant goal of American imperialism." On page 142 we learn that Dean... Read more ›