14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterful Exploration Of Origins & Progress Of Vietnam War!, July 14, 2003
This review is from: Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 (Paperback)
One can now add this interesting and informative book to the growing list of recent tomes adding to our understanding of how we can so inextricably drawn into the unfortunate miasma called Vietnam. Certainly, according to able historian A. J. Langguth, there is more than enough culpability in the stream of administrations stretching back as far as the Eisenhower years to add to the coals on the slowly spreading conflagration it eventually became. According to the author, there is little doubt that the Vietnam War wound up being the single most divisive war since the Civil war more than 100 years before. The reasons it split the country into two angry and warring camps were related to its very causes, namely the arrogance and hubris of the WWII generation of those believing in their un power and invulnerability, the so called "best and brightest" that David Halberstam described so beautifully in his book of the same name.
Langguth employs a treasure-trove of new material to examine the way sin which the various administrations made decisions leading us along the deceptive path that led to ever deeper and deeper involvement in Vietnam. And although Eisenhower had warned about the dangers of relying on the wisdom and purposes of the rising clique of the "military-industrial'' complex, he made decisions that facilitated the further extension of policy into Vietnam by the young and relatively unwary president who followed him. Yet it was through Kennedy's reliance on old cold warriors for advice and counsel that led him into a deepening commitment. Indeed, increasingly Kennedy fell under the charismatic influence of defense Secretary Robert McNamara charismatic appeals to escalate the conflict, using euphemistic ideas such as like statistical control and other cost-benefit analysis techniques to seemingly rationalize the process of making decisions into a business decision mentality, rather than recognizing it was men's lives and deaths they were discussing. In such a way, the movement down the path toward ever greater engagement in Vietnam can be viewed as a series of series of tragic mistakes, a series of decision points involving misinterpretations of what was happening and what it meant.
Of course, later in the war, a number of mistakes were made as the domestic political considerations in terms of the associated political advantage or liability of any particular military decision added further complications to the decision making process. Finally, attempts to win the war through the use of propaganda and manipulation of the facts released to the American public disregarded the evidence in favor of further distortions. This had the terrible and politically indefensible policy of leaving the American soldiers at risk in order to gain political advantage both across the negotiating table with the Hanoi regime as well as lying about the conduct and progress of the war to the American public. In essence, the political superstructure here at home became more and more concerned with the self-contained political universe they operated in, and more and more oblivious to the realities of the situation on the ground for American forces in Vietnam. Indeed, they often seemed to being engaging in a willful denial of the basic realities of the military situation and the cultural facts of life in South Vietnam.
This is a very carefully written and quite comprehensive book, one in which the author clearly demonstrates a true appreciation for the unintended consequence and irony of the war. This is easily the best of a spate of recent books published on the subject, and ranks favorably on the same shelf as Stanley Karnow's masterful presentation of the war's overall history in "Vietnam: A History". It also shares an appreciation for the complexities of the war and the ways in which our descent into the madness was triggered by the arrogance, stupidity, and callousness of American politicians. In this sense it share s the perspective of two other fairly recent books, "American Tragedy" by David Kaiser, and "Choosing War" by Frederik Logevall.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Power and failure, May 27, 2003
This review is from: Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 (Paperback)
This work shows exactly how the United states gradually became involved in Vietnam from the details on up. Other reviews have commented on Langguth's objectivity and accuracy. I will mention the most lasting impression this book left on me:
Most of us have the perception that the great men of power throughout history are made of something different from ourselves. We only see them on the world's stage, made up and prepared; speeches rehearsed; ceremony and station lending gravity to their every word and action. We don't think of them sleepless; with a bit of popcorn stuck in their teeth; complaining to their wives; or any of the other everyday situations that even these men of power experience. And so we assume their minds are always bent to grand designs. We think they hold a certain wisdom that lets them maneuver through politics and war, making decisions based on facts or morality.
Langguth's tale tells a different story. Decisions that cost tens of thousands of lives and reshape the world are made by men as sweaty and itchy as you and I. Wars are started because of ego, petty squabbles, and job security. Elections! How many have died so that one man could keep his job? So we see Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon, and all the well-dressed men around them, chewing their lips and eyeing one and other with mistrust, stabbing one and other in the back, lying and cheating, making mistakes.
Wars are started all because we make the mistake of investing such power in mere humans.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revelations, August 22, 2001
By A Customer
I lived through that war and now I see from this book how so many US politicians put their political/election interests above what needed to be done. Langguth clearly spells it out, and I kept reading and reading. The photographs were great. I wish there were a few more maps. And Kissinger!! -- what a terrible manipulative "advisor" repeatedly going after his own glory for the history books; sucking up to the presidents one day and laughing at them behind their backs the next. And then the book shows the military deliberately giving wrong information to the White House. No wonder it was a mess. And the people and soldiers suffered terribly. This book is really valuable. Special thanks to the author. Now I want to read more books about this tragic war.
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