Spite House: Last Secret [Mass Market Paperback]

Monika Jensen-stevenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998

"Spite House" is the remarkable true story of two Marines -- a hunter and his prey. Pvt. Robert Garwood was a jeep driver for a Marine Intelligence unit when he was taken captive by the Vietcong in 1965, ten days before his tour of duty ended. Col. Tom McKenney was a member of a clandestine team of "hunter-shooters" assigned to seek out and terminate American traitors -- and a missing private named Garwood was designated as one of his prime targets. In this incredible real-life account, Monika Jensen-Stevenson exposes one of the cruelest covert operations and cover-ups of the war, and pleads an eloquent case for the innocence of Bobby Garwood, who was finally returned to his country -- more than six years after the last American POW had been allegedly released -- to face not a hero's welcome, but unfounded accusations of treachery and collusion, a court-martial and disgrace.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book uses impressive spadework to tell the story of what its subtitle calls "the last secret of the war in Vietnam," namely, what really happened in the case of Marine Private Bobby Garwood, the last soldier to return from the war alive. He returned in 1979, after 14 years missing in action. Jensen-Stevenson, a former Sixty Minutes producer, managed to get on the record people who have spent years staying off it: several well-placed military intelligence figures and Garwood (court-martialed for consorting with the enemy upon his return) himself. The main contentions of the book are that Garwood didn't desert but was captured after a firefight, that despite the sorts of lapses that virtually all Vietnam POWs fell prey to from time to time, he remained a loyal American throughout an incredibly arduous captivity, and most explosively of all: that before his return, based on the idea that he was a defector, there was an organized effort by U.S. forces to assassinate him. Readers will conclude that the Garwood case needs re-opening. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

While every American prisoner suffered under Viet Cong and North Vietnamese control, few can lay claim to the physical and mental duress endured by Robert Garwood. This young Marine driver was captured only ten days before the end of his tour of duty in 1965. He spent the next 14 years as a POW and, when finally repatriated in 1979, was immediately arrested by the U.S. military and charged with collaborating with the enemy. The charges against Garwood were never substantiated but were widely believed by U.S. intelligence officers in Vietnam. Jensen-Stevenson (Kiss the Boys Good-bye, NAL Dutton, 1991, pap.) describes Garwood's ordeal both from the standpoint of the hapless Marine, caught up in events far beyond his understanding, and from that of Col. Tom McKenney, a Marine officer obsessed with killing the man he was told was a traitor. A fascinating and disturbing story, it is a useful addition to Vietnam War collections. Recommended for academic and public libraries.?John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Avon (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038073169X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380731695
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,495,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars POW's in Vietnam, October 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Spite House: The Last Secret of the War in Vietnam (Hardcover)

When I met my husband in 1979. He had just escaped Vietnam the year before. He was one of the boat people. He told me way back in 1979 that he had seen American POW's as late as 1978 with his own eyes on more then one occasion. He was riding his scooter far out in the country side and saw a group of tall, long haired and bearded Caucasion men working the rice paddy fields under Vietnamese armed guard. When he looked a little too long and too hard the guards aimed their rifles at him so he looked away and kept driving.
He said the Caucasian mens faces were very sad.
My husband wouldn't lie to me. He still insists it true and we have told many people about it
Since then I made it a point to question every Vietnamese refugee I met. Several had told me they saw them with their own eyes as late as 1982.
I was also told that it was common knowledge in Vietnam that American POW's were still there.They were surprised that most Americans didn't know about it. They just figured maybe we didn't want them back or didn't care.
I don't know the real truth about Bobby Garwood. But, I beleive what my husband and other Vietnamese have told me
I don't know if there are any POW's left alive now. It's been so long. But, I believe there were as late as 1982 and I pray for them every night.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Footnotes, please!, September 6, 2001

By 

Stephen Sossaman, [e-mail] (Westfield, Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spite House: Last Secret (Mass Market Paperback)

OK, footnotes might seem boring, and they might frighten some potential book buyers, but any book concerning the controversy over Robert Garwood needs rigorous footnotes identifying the source or sources of various assertions. In Spite House, the few footnotes are really odd; some minor matters are footnoted, major matters are not. The footnotes appear to have been tacked on, not by the author, and clearly not scrutinized by any editor. The primary source appears to be Colonel Tom McKenney. Now, he is probably a fine and honest man, but I suspect his assertions need double checking because of his apparent need to believe in one system or another 100%, first the Marine Corps and then, once disillusioned with the USMC, with his church. The leaps of illogic attributed to him and others are frightening. One final note: it strikes me as absolutely absurd that the Vietnamese communists, fierce and proud soldiers and adamant nationalists (and contemptuous of south Vietnamese "puppets") would allow American deserters to "lead" their tactical units (as the book several times says American intelligence officers believed). If American officials did actually believe that, we have, I would guess, yet another example of our fatal, egotistical ignorance of Vietnamese history and thought.

28 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Spoof House, March 10, 2003

By 

Smoten (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spite House: The Last Secret of the War in Vietnam (Hardcover)

In late 1999 Ms. Jensen-Stevenson settled the libel lawsuit filed against her and her publishers by Dr. Harold Kushner for the scurrilous allegations she had made against him in "Spite House". Dr. Kushner was a P.O.W. in several of the jungle camps where Robert Garwood acted as guard and interrogator for the Communists. Ms. Jensen-Stevenson agreed to a monetary settlement (which Dr. Kushner promptly donated to charity) and also agreed to publish an apology to him in both the New York Times and Dr. Kushner's local paper; she admitted that the only source for her charges was Robert Garwood and that none of the other surviving P.O.W.'s would buttress her assertions.

The facts of Robert Garwood's case, as opposed to the fiction of "Spite House", are well known and easily summarized: Garwood was captured in or near Da Nang in 1965 and for approximately the next eighteen months he was a P.O.W., a status that changed when he was offered release but refused it, electing to stay with the Viet Cong as a lieutenant. Now calling himself Nguyen Chien Dau ("Nguyen the Freedom Fighter"), Garwood became fully integrated into the Viet Cong infrastructure. He carried a standard-issue AK-47 and used it to guard fellow Americans. He also interrogated them and encouraged them to write and record anti-American propaganda. He assaulted at least one P.O.W. (he was later convicted of this), lived in the guards quarters and made pro-Communist loudspeaker broadcasts near Marine positions. He may even have participated in combat assaults on Marine patrols and bases, although it seems ludicrous to imagine that the Viet Cong, fierce warriors with an intimate knowledge of the land, would have actually allowed a motor pool private to lead them into battle. The Marine Corps learned of Garwood's perfidy fairly early on when P.O.W.'s from Garwood's camp were released and he was marked for court martial should he resurface.

Garwood was not seen by Americans from 1969 until 1979, when he passed a note to a Finnish businessman in a hotel restaurant in Hanoi. Garwood's name had not been on any list of P.O.W.'s provided by the North Vietnamese prior to the repatriation of all-yes, all-American P.O.W.'s in 1973. Garwood returned to the United States in 1979, was convicted after a lengthy court martial, and dishonorably discharged. Garwood was convicted for the things he did while he was with the enemy, not for acts committed while he was a prisoner; he was no longer a prisoner once he was offered release but voluntarily stayed with the Viet Cong.

The entire shabby Garwood affair should have been relegated to nothing more than a footnote of the Vietnam War but wasn't because politics do indeed make strange bedfellows. Garwood was embraced by the activist faction of the P.O.W./M.I.A. movement upon his return when he claimed that Americans were still being held captive in Vietnam years after the end of the war. It was both strange and sad to see the wives and children of missing servicemen making common cause with a turncoat. Certain politician, eager to make whatever hay they could from the M.I.A. issue, also championed Garwood. One senator went so far as to fly with Garwood to North Vietnam-years after Garwood's return-so Garwood could show him where Americans were still being held. Nothing came of it, naturally, and to this date no P.O.W. or M.I.A. has returned since "Operation Homecoming" in 1973.

"Spite House", and the author's equally duplicitous "Kiss the Boys Goodbye", accords Garwood full P.O.W. status for the entire time he was in Vietnam by stacking one paper-thin explanation for his behavior atop another. Yes, he carried an AK-47 but it was unloaded. Yes, he lived with the guards and wore their uniform but he wanted to live with the Americans. But even Ms. Jensen-Stevenson's prodigious imagination fails when it comes to explaining why the Vietnamese would cling so tenaciously to a lowly Marine private. The only explanation is the truth-Garwood remained in Vietnam because he wanted to; when he wanted to leave, he left.

"Spite House" is infuriating and dishonest, rendered all the more so by Ms. Jensen-Stevenson's breathless prose style.