Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the Cia's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam [Deluxe Edition] [Paperback]

Frank Snepp (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0700612130 | ISBN-13: 978-0700612130 | Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Edition: 25 Anv Sub

Widely regarded as a classic on the Vietnam War, Decent Interval provides a scathing critique of the CIAÂ’s role in and final departure from that conflict. Still the most detailed and respected account of AmericaÂ’s final days in Vietnam, the book was written at great risk and ultimately at great sacrifice by an author who had believed in the CIAÂ’s cause but was disillusioned by the agencyÂ’s treacherous withdrawal, leaving thousands of Vietnamese allies to the mercy of an angry enemy. A quarter-century later, it remains a riveting and powerful testament to one of the darkest episodes in American history.

With a new foreword by Gloria Emerson

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A great service to everyoneÂ’s understanding of what happened in Vietnam in the spring of 1975" -- Kevin Buckley, New York Times Book Review

"An astonishing book. . . . Brilliantly argued and elegantly written." -- Seymour Hersh, Los Angeles Times

"By far the richest document yet produced on the American and South Vietnamese end game." -- Laurence Stern, Washington Post Book World

"Important revelations. The incredible history of the American role in Vietnam would have been forever poorer without SneppÂ’s perspective." -- Boston Globe

"Provides the most detailed account to date of the operations of the CIA inside South Vietnam." -- New York Times

"Those who read the book will shudder anew at the tragedy, confusion, and gross incompetence Snepp lays bare." -- John Barkham Reviews

"Vigorous, gripping, novelistic in its evocation of mood, setting, and character." --Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

From the Back Cover

"The value of Snepp’s book is that it teaches us, in an absorbing and brilliant manner, where the mistakes were made in the CIA and in the highest ranks of officials. . . . Even the most ardent critics of the war could not have ever guessed what Snepp the [CIA] insider has revealed."—-Gloria Emerson, winner of the National Book Award for Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 636 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas; 25 Anv Sub edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700612130
• ISBN-13: 978-0700612130
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #559,759 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intelligence....and intelligent use, June 1, 2004

By 

S. A Troutt (MURFREESBORO, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the Cia's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam (Paperback)

History has a way of repeating itself. 'Intelligence is as only good as the analyst.' This book about events almost thirty years past is so totally relevant today. 'Facts and beliefs are not the same thing.' Agents in the field were getting and giving good information but it was ignored berated dismissed almost out of hand to the very end. Why? Simply 'the Powers that Be' did not like the truth and did not want the truth. They did not want it to be that way (Saigon falling) so the middle bureaucrats gave them what they wanted to hear, not what they needed to hear. And Saigon fell.
To draw parallels to 'intelligence' failures about 'WMDs', Iraqi-Osama ties, the very phrase 'welcome with rose petals' or Tennant's 'slam dunk' phrase is both disturbing and disheartening. This book tells it as it was (and is) 'Intelligence' can be used and misused.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars While Saigon burned..., April 20, 2006

By 

John Anderson (Bar Harbor, ME USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the Cia's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam (Paperback)

ABout half way through DECENT INTERVAL one is brought to two conclusions: First of all this is a remarkably honest and straightforward piece of autobiography, and second, the author is without doubt THE Gadarene Swine. One is really not sure whether to laugh or cry at Snepp's cheerful descriptions of life inside the American Embassy in Saigon as the consequences of thirty years of botched military and political intervention came crashing down. At least we now know where the tough go when the going is tough -they go swimming in resort pools, as does our author/hero in between an almost ritualistic round of bar calls & various sorts of implied "involvements" with local and American women. Snepp has no apologies for having made a more or less complete mess of the "intelligence analysis" that he was supposed to be doing -he just points out that so did everyone else. He gets angry at co-workers who abandoned Vietnamese staff-members, spies, and "interrogators" to the mercy of the Viet Cong, or put personal profit above the safety of others -and then turns right around and comments on what a mess the movers made of his apartment when they packed up all his stuff to ship it home (on some of the planes that COULD have carried the people that he expresses concern for!. The writing verges from the mildly annoying to the totally over-blown, and in places it would be truly funny if the whole subject weren't so tragic. I gather that the CIA gave Snepp a hard time after the book came out. His behaviour suggests that SOMEONE had to! I give this book three stars and encourage people to read it because if this is REALLY what goes on in our government agencies one can only shudder at the prospects for the future.

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good view of our final days in Saigon, March 9, 2003

By 

"lrptextbuks" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the Cia's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam (Paperback)

The Vietnam War was a product of the Cold War, that great conflict between titan powers that was spawned by the nuclear age and that dominated foreign diplomacy for decades. It was capitalism versus communism and democracy versus autocracy. The conflict raged not only in the battlefields of Vietnam, but also in the homeland, where the war took the center stage of a cultural and social revolution. In all of the commotion and of all the debate, the war, at the field level, became a product of the political chaos that characterized America during that period. Washington, who scrambled for a policy that worked, that appeased the nation, that placated the growing upheaval, in the end never found it. Its failure to do so produced the only solution that was politically viable albeit immoral: get out anyway you can, but by golly DO GET OUT! This is what Decent Interval is about.

Decent Interval is Frank Snepp's first hand account of the immoral exit the United States made from Vietnam in 1975. Aside from the issues concerning the righteousness of the war, of lost American lives, of a nation grown weary, and of the social/cultural revolution it became a part of, the fact is, that nevertheless, we were there, and we made commitments. And although making the exit may very well have been the right thing to do, the way we left violated the principles that make up the character of our nation. We failed to live up to the very values that we usually identify as American, or at least those values that we like to believe we possess. We value human life. We value freedom. We value honesty. And most of all we value being recognized as champions of all of that. We love that image of America. In Decent Interval we learn that America's darkest hour in Vietnam did not occur during the war. Instead, our worst folly came in the end. We bungled everything from leaving behind a huge arsenal for the enemy, to turning our backs on thousands of people who were loyal to America, who trusted us, who knew our values, and never in their wildest dreams did they imagine that their service to us would be repaid with deception and abandonment.

Decent Interval is not a partisan view in the traditional Pro-war/Anti-war sense. Rather it's a factual account of events as seen through Snepp's eyes. Snepp was a CIA analyst in Saigon, and some have labeled Decent Interval as a whistle blow, but in actuality, the fact that our involvement in Vietnam was full of bureaucratic incompetence and ineptitude, was no secret. Snepp simply gave us the details. .

Decent Interval is an excellent read. It epitomizes everything that went wrong in Vietnam. It illustrates the limits of our political power in the face of an increasingly anxious electorate, and how political survivability took precedence over what would otherwise have been considered the "right thing to do."