Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945 [Hardcover]

Seymour Topping (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2005

In official U.S. military annals there is only the barest mention of the intrepid agents of the Office of Strategic Services who in 1945 lived in the jungles of Vietnam with Ho Chi Minh. Their mission was to train and arm a cadre of his Vietminh guerrillas for combat against the Japanese. This novel is based on that clandestine operation and on OSS interviews with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and South China.

The story unfolds at an historic moment in the last months of World War II when President Truman was deciding whether to pursue the Roosevelt aim of transforming Vietnam into a U.N. trusteeship leading to independence or yield to Charles De Gaulle’s demands for restoration of French suzerainty. On a secret mission to realize President Roosevelt’s vision, Travis Duncan, special agent of the OSS, undertakes a perilous journey, eluding Japanese forces and bandits, for a meeting with Ho Chi Minh in his remote headquarters. Duncan becomes witness in North and South Vietnam to the intrigue and brutality of the decisive power struggle between the Vietnamese nationalists and the French colonialists. Two women out of Duncan’s past, a Vietnamese who had become a deputy to Ho Chi Minh, and a French Gaullist agent, emerge as key actors in his mission.

The reader will recognize the historic figures portrayed in this novel. The other characters are based on real individuals or are fictional. All serve to recall a turning point in history and a lost opportunity in dealing with Ho Ch-Minh that could have spared us the agony of the Vietnam War.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Seymour Topping covered the Chinese civil war for three years and in 1950 opened The Associated Press bureau in Saigon. After reporting the French Indochina War for two years, he was posted in London and Berlin. He joined the New York Times in 1959 and following three years in Moscow became Chief Correspondent Southeast Asia. He was appointed Foreign Editor in 1969 serving later as Managing Editor. He is now SanPaolo Professor Emeritus of International Journalism at Columbia University and lives with his wife, Audrey, a photojournalist, in Scarsdale, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Eastbridge (January 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891936697
• ISBN-13: 978-1891936692
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #624,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

At the close of World War II, Topping--who had served as an infantry officer in the Pacific--reported for the International News Service from Beijing and Mao's Yenan stronghold before joining the Associated Press in Nanking, Chiang Kai-shek's capital. He covered the Chinese Civil War for the next three years, often interviewing Nationalist and Communist commanders in combat zones. Crossing Nationalist lines, Topping was captured by Communist guerrillas and tramped for days over battlefields to reach the People's Liberation Army as it advanced on Nanking. The sole correspondent on the battlefield during the decisive Battle of the Huai-Hai, which sealed Mao's victory, Topping later scored a world-wide exclusive as the first journalist to report the fall of the capital.

In 1950, Topping opened the Associated Press bureau in Saigon, becoming the first American correspondent in Vietnam. In 1951, John F. Kennedy, then a young congressman on a fact-finding visit to Saigon, sought out Topping for a briefing. Assignments in London and West Berlin followed, then Moscow and Hong Kong for the New York Times. During those years Topping reported on the Chinese intervention in the Korean conflict, Mao's Cultural Revolution and its preceding internal power struggle, the Chinese leader's monumental ideological split with Nikita Khrushchev, the French Indochina War, America's Vietnam War, and the genocides in Cambodia and Indonesia. He stood in the Kremlin with a vodka-tilting Khrushchev on the night the Cuban missile crisis ended and interviewed Fidel Castro in Havana on its aftermath.

Topping is married to to Audrey Ronning, a world-renowned photojournalist and writer and daughter of the first Canadian ambassador to China who he met in China. As the couple traveled from post to post reporting on some of the biggest stories of the century in Asia and Eastern Europe, they raised five daughters. In his latest book, On the Front Lines of the Cold War,Topping cites lessons to be learned from the Asia wars which could serve as useful guides for American policymakers in dealing with present-day conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

From China to Indochina, Burma to Korea and beyond, Topping did more than report the news; he became involved in international diplomacy, enabling him to gain extraordinary insights. In On the Front Lines of the Cold War, Topping shares these insights, providing an invaluable eyewitness account of some of the pivotal moments in modern history.

Seymour Topping retired from the New York Times in 1993. He served until 2002 as a professor of international journalism at Columbia University and administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes. Now professor emeritus, he lectures in the United States and China, where he heads the International Advisory Board of Tsinghua University. His previous books include Journey Between Two Chinas, The Peking Letter: A Novel of the Chinese Civil War, and Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars colorful and revisionist history, January 14, 2005

By 

Dr. J. Economos (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945 (Hardcover)

If you like your history and politics with a dash excitement and adventure, "with a human face", read this book. If you are at all interested in why the Vietnam War did not have to happen, and in how the simple ignorance (or indifference) of policymakers can have hugely catastrophic consequences down the line -- read this book.
The point is so relevant it hurts.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changing Your View Of Ho, February 27, 2005

By 

Mike Powell (New Fairfield, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945 (Hardcover)

On a long flight out to Asia I had the perfect opportunity to settle down with a good book: Fatal Crossroads. Actually, "good" is a wholly inadequate word in this case. This was the archetypal "riveting-read" so I cursed inconvenient flight connection times and the occasional need to sleep.

Seymour Topping's book was both an education and an entertainment. Given his illustrious journalistic background, including as former Managing Editor of the New York Times, my "expectation bar" was already high; but isn't it a delight when reality exceeds expectation?

On a stylistic note, I constantly marvelled at how Seymour Topping managed to paint such vivid pictures while maintaining an economy of words - a skill honed, presumably, by the requirements of his craft over many years. It irritates me when authors take an obvious "time out" from a narrative because they feel compelled by convention to provide copious descriptive detailing. In this case, I would often get to the end of a passage and think: "Wow - I just learnt so much about that character (or situation) within such an efficient word-count!" I suppose this must be one of the best ways to ensure a novel keeps you as a willing captive, but it's not a skill that is easily taught.

The poignancy of Travis Duncan's evolving relationships with two of the leading female characters - Mai and Suzanne - achieved one the greatest things a novel can do: within a short time, I cared about these pivotal characters. And, like Duncan, I found myself switching the emphasis of my sympathy and allegiance for these two women. On balance, my deepest affection remained with Mai until the end because she provided my favourite dialogue at Page 150 when Duncan was trying to elicit whether she was in love with him:

Mai closed her eyes for a moment. "My heart is full of love for you," she whispered. "You have been so kind to me. You're doing so much for my people." She hesitated. "That afternoon, when we spoke at the riverbank before you left for the border, you were so sad. I wanted you to be happy. I wanted to give you a gift." She regarded Duncan sorrowfully. "I had nothing to give you except myself."

I still get goose-bumps when I re-read that passage. Like so much of the relationship dialogue, it was beautifully observed ... as was the way in which the author gradually shifted Mai's age and appearance to become less obviously attractive.

There were three big surprises for me: 1) Ho Chi Minh was portrayed in a way that has now positively revised my historical perspective of the man; 2) until the penultimate page of the novel, I had not suspected the surprise that awaits the reader; 3) despite obviously knowing from Page 1 that the "fatal turning" would be taken at the crossroads of history, as the novel reached its climax I found myself hoping-beyond-hope that Duncan would succeed in his quest and that history would be re-written ... a ludicrous and illogical expectation, of course, but the best illustration as to how deeply Fatal Crossroads engaged me. The last time I can remember that happening was with the movie, Titanic. We all knew the damned ship was going to sink, but we still managed to be kept in suspense for three hours. Seymour Topping's excellent book had the same effect - it too would make a stunning movie in the right directorial hands. Someone needs to get working on a screenplay!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have been a Frontline documentary instead of fictionalized history, December 20, 2008

By 

zenhole (Minot,MA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fatal Crossroads: A Novel of Vietnam 1945 (Hardcover)

I left religious life in 1968 (TET offensive) to teach in a high school. The students demanded to know my opinions concerning the VietNam War and I was ashamed to defer answering until I could learn more about its origins as I had been a Trappist.
I tried to do research but nothing explained the principles upon which the war was being fought except the "Domino Theory". In 1978, I showed my class the video "Viet Nam" by Stanley Karnow on PBS. From it I learned of the WW II cooperation between US forces and Ho Chi Minh's independence movement, the Vietminh, and of the USA's tacit understanding that we would support Viet Nam's extricating itself from the French colonial Empire.
Archimedes Patti, the OSS officer in charge of the "Deer Team" eventually wrote a book, "Why Viet Nam?" and after being suppressed by our government for decades, was finally allowed to publish it in 1980.
In it, the complete story of how the U.S. reversed its policy in order to get France back up on its economic feet, climaxed when OSS Officer and hero, Lt.Col. A.Peter Dewey protested to Washington that: "Cochinchina is burning, the French and the British are finished here, and we (the Americans) ought to clear out of Southeast Asia"[sent Sept. 24, 1945). On Sept. 26, Peter Dewey was shot to death at a mysterious ambush as he was being hustled out of Viet Nam in accord with the orders of British Major General Douglas gracey, a supporter of French retaking of the colony.
This change in US policy resulted in the nine year French-Indochinese War, supported largely with American weapons and money; and followed by the "growth" of U.S. direct involvement lasting until 1974 with 58,000 U.S. soldiers killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and millions of VietNamese killed/wounded. The failur to address this genesis caused me and many to never fully understand WHY the Vietnam War was an immoral war. Millions of innocent and heroic people suffered and died to perpetuate an initial and fatal mistake in foreign policy.
There is no doubt that the U.S. has repeated with an eerily similar "mistake" in its pre-emptive war in Iraq. Both stories need to be told and learned, but not from a work of fictionalized history such as "Fatal Crossroads". Seymore Topping is qualified to tell the real story without embellishing it with a romance and the use of pseudonyms.