Customer Reviews

Secrets of the Vietnam War

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General Davidson, author of this succinct book,
was an intelligence specialist for MACV and retired
to write a few books about the following topics:
1. The nature of the conflict in terms of revolutionary
warfare. 2. The debate over the numbers, a topic which
became most controversial after the CBS documentary with
Mike Wallace, "The Uncounted Enemy," was aired. 3. The Tet
offensive and its meaning. 4. One chapter ticks through ten
myths about the war--myth meaning perceptions at variance
with the perceptions of General Davidson. 5. How We Lost
the War. 6. How we could have won the war.

General Davidson was a brilliant and articulate man who
could write effectively. He has done a lot in this book
to set the record straight from the Establishment point of
view.

I recommend this book to all who have an open mind when
they come to study Vietnam. I was shocked by the review
I found on this Amazon.com board and thought there should
be a few words in favor of this short, but useful book.

Peter Rollins, US Marines, 1963-1966

The Vietnam War has developed into one of the most misunderstood phenomenona in American history. The myths that encrust that war's history are settling in as accepted "fact." This little book was General Davidson's last attempt to set the record straight before he died. He effectively demolishes a number of myths that were widespread during the war, including "Westmoreland's strategy of attrition was the wrong strategy,"Communist China would enter the war against the United States if the latter prosecuted the war too aggressively against North Vietnam," and "The Tonkin Gulf incident never happened."

General Devidson then goes on to tell "How We Could Have won the Vietnam War." Perhaps the most decisive errors in the strategy that our politicians adopted (contrary to the advice of their military subordinates) were the idea of "incremental" application of force, and the surrender of the initiative to the enemy by denying allied forces access to North Vietnam's vital supply lines through Laos and Cambodia. Davidson's book makes clear that the U.S. military faithfully carried out its orders, but the people giving the orders didn't know what they were doing, however well intentioned they may have been in their own minds.

The biggest "secret" of the war may have been simply that it was easily winnable, but U.S. policy makers, cocooned in the tapestry of fears they conjured up in a new nuclear age with global communism on the march, consistently chose policies that ensured that the U.S. could not achieve its objectives. The tragedy, or, indeed, the obscenity, was the political decision to persist in the war after the decisions had been taken to make the war unwinnable -- or "winnable" only at very great cost, and through the agency of America's South Vietnamese allies who, in the event, were denied military support against North Vietnam's massive invasion after the withdrawal of U.S. forces. That persistence prolonged the suffering of the South Vietnamese, in whose land we chose to fight the war, and increased the American casualties for the primary aim of protecting the reputations of American politicians.

General Davidson's earlier book embracing the entire history of the war in Indochina, beginning with the French struggle after World War II to maintain its century-old colony, details the particulars of the day-to-day actions of the war, including the contributions of the many allied forces from the Australians and New Zealanders to the Thais and the South Koreans. But this little book serves as an addendum, and a handy reference, for the main deficiencies that underlay America's refusal to win what should have been a relatively simple blocking of militant communism's advance against the ring of containment.

Final note: The cover of this book shows 72 helicopters. It is one of the best covers I've seen on a book about the Vietnam War, which was, preeminently, a helicopter war, yet few books (or even movies) suggest the dimensions of that new kind of war where hundreds of helicopters mobilized and maneuvered American and allied troops to completely negate the tactics the North Vietnamese had developed in fighting the French.

Should be titled "I am a Facist and Westmoreland was a great general". His other book on the Vietnam war was quite interesting. This one is not worth reading. Among other police state fantasies he wants censorship of the press. Rather than accept that the pentagon and Dept. of defense (and LBJ) conducted the war poorly, he claims we were stabbed in the back by the Liberals and media. If you believe thats why we failed to win and you think Westmoreland was a great general who conducted the war well, you will love this book.

If you are interested in little known facts about the war look elsewhere.