Customer Reviews

Spite House: Last Secret

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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.

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.

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.

This well written, but poorly researched fantasy piece should have been labeled as a novel in my opinion. Ten POWS died of starvation, mistreatment, and torture in Garwood's camp; none of them crossed over to the enemy. To know the real Bobby Garwood, read Frank Anton's "Why Didn't You Get Me Out?" or Zalin Grant's "Survivors," plus several more POW narratives that are out of print but still may be found at major libraries. If you are still inclined to believe the best in Garwood, look up his name or "Garwood Papers" on the POW/MIA Database on the Library of Congress's website, and you'll discover a ton of material that will change your mind

There is a lot of truth brought out in this book, but there are MANY unanswered questions concerning incidents involving Robert Garwood that occurred in the death camps of South Vietnam. These questions have been addressed by the men that suffered through horrible starvation, lack of medical treatment, and slave labor while Robert Garwood lived in relative comfort. Our government did not make up the horror stories that these men recounted in the court martial of Garwood. Garwood may have been a victim, but he took advantage of his position to the detriment of his fellow Americans...

This is the author's second book touting convicted traitor Garwood as a hero. (" Kiss the Boys Goodbye" was the first.) In first book Marine General Lewis Walt is not even in the index, however in "Spite House " he is on fifteen pages and becomes Garwood's father confessor and mentor. The reason is Walt had died. The author conveniently never has a word from the former pows from the camp they were all in in SVietnam and who testified against him at his court martial. Of course she quotes dead pow Eisenbraun and Grisset ad nauseam. Tell the Bruce Womack story ( pgs 212-223) to any Marine Sergeant Major and you will have him on his knees laughing-it did to me and my retired Marine buddies. The author has Sam Owens commanding a Force Recon company. The Recon Association lists all their former company commanders and Owens isn't one of them. If you really want to know if Garwood was a traitor read Col Gary Solis' work on Marine Law in Vietnam-it will tell you all that Jensen-Stevenson purposely omits. Semper Fi, RA Doyle USMC retired

I was led to this book by Tom McKenney, one of the principals in the story. Tom McKenney was my high school biology teacher. He was everyone's favorite but in retrospect we knew little about him in the early '60s. Spite House concentrates on his years as a Marine in Vietnam and after. His assignment was to kill American deserters. That in itself was an amazing revelation to me, the idea that anyone was assigned this task, let alone someone I knew. The other principal in the story, Bobby Garwood, was the hunted.

The book raised more questions for me than it answered, mainly because I was not a protester at the time and very trusting over the years, growing somewhat out of an awareness that I did not have enough information to make a reasoned judgment on the complex issues surrounding the conflict. Now I feel I need to read much more about that era and how policies have evolved -- or not -- since that time.

The book is a page-turner for the most part. The author is skillful in providing just enough gruesome information on the life of a POW to provide the picture without delving gratuitously into the sordid details. The later chapters could have been more tightly edited for flow, but substance outweighs form in this historic account. I commend the author for what appears to be diligent research and a reporter's approach to conveying this story. It needed to be told, even if other writings take an opposite view. If you want to rethink, or starting thinking about America's history and political and military policies in the last half of the twentieth century, pick up this book.

The total lack of actual historical facts, and the obvious lack of research made me put this book away before I got halfway through it. If you want to read something by an author who is obviously just talking about her opinion and is under Bobby Garwood's spell, enjoy. Otherwise, dont waste your time.

Continuing in the traditions of "Kiss the Boys Goodbye," Ms. Stevenson has produced another piece of pseudo-history. Robert Garwood was a collaborator with the enemy. His court-martial conviction was appealed through the military appellate system, then through the civil courts to the Supreme Court, where it was upheld. That should tell you something about the case against him. Read Zalin Grant's "The Survivors" and Frank Anton's "Why didn't You Get Me Out?" for a real view of Garwood.

God bless Monika Jensen-Stevenson for telling the truth about the Bobby Garwood story finally. So many have been deceived, but more importantly, Bobby Garwood has been done wrong, very wrong, by a government more concerned with covering its tracks in the POW MIA abandonment travesty than in doing what is right. Bobby had knowledge of other Americans held back by the atheist Vietnamese communists after the Vietnam War, but our government chose to discredit him instead. This book is not easy to put down once you start reading it. It is an amazing true story about a man ruined by his government and the marine officer who was tasked with killing him only to become his best friend. May God bless Bobby Garwood and may those who ruined this man's reputation through lies and deceit get their just due.