Customer Reviews

Vietnam at War: The History: 1946-1975

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General Davidson had the inside track on the Vietnam War, at least from the American side, and for the American portion of the war. As he rightly notes, the war was a Vietnamese war, first against the French (with some Vietnamese fighting with the French), then against the Americans (with many Vietnamese fighting with the Americans, including the majority in the South), and finally a purely fratricidal war with the stalwart Soviets and Chinese Communists backing the North while the feckless Americans backed (and ultimately failed to back) the South.

No one was in a better position to understand the American piece of the 30-year war than General Davidson. The primary value of this history is seeing the story through the eyes of a central participant. Davidson researched the French part of the war, and he kept up with the final struggle between the two Vietnams through American reporting and, later, through selected documents obtained from North Vietnamese sources. The core of the book, and the best part, is the central American war that Davidson participated in. Davidson properly thought it important to add the two other parts to present a full history of the Vietnamese struggle.

One could question whether or not General Giap deserved the heightened status that Davidson accords him. Davidson needed some way to tie all the pieces together, and he lit upon Giap as a qualified foil. He was qualified, but probably not the best qualified. There were a number of other Vietnamese, both North and South, who might have been chosen as well. Certainly Ho Chi Minh was the driving force in the North. The problem with picking him was that he died well before the war ended (while Giap survived the war). In the South there was the dominant figure of Ngo Dinh Diem, the one patriot who might have carried off the defense of the South against Ho Chi Minh's aggressive ambitions, but who was, of course, taken out by the blind machinations of Averill Harriman and Henry Cabot Lodge. Other candidates for the central role in the South were ultimately vanquished by the North, and thus disqualified by being absent at the finish. Still, the two striking figures were Ho Chi Minh in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem in the South, although neither lived to see the end of the war.

Davidson's book is superior to any other history written by the time he wrote his book. Subsequent historians, with access to larger documentation and historical pools of information, may well achieve a more definitive historical grasp. And, indeed, Davidson does not seek to put the war into any larger historical context. But all subsequent historians will draw on the special first-hand knowledge, and sense of the war, that Davidson employs in this essential work.

The book opens with an in-depth description of the little known historical figure who directed the Vietnam wars for 30 years--North Vietnamese Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap. In Giap's background and personality we first see the seeds of determination that led ultimately to the defeat of three major armies: the French, the Americans, and the Army of South Vietnam.

The wars are presented from a factual, and thoroughly researched, perspective. Davidson analyses both sides of each major strategy, and each key battle. A reader wanting to know what really took place in the Vietnam wars (ours and theirs), from a military perspective, will find the answers here. And the answers are sometimes surprising when compared to the newspaper and televison accounts which were published at that time.

I got this book because I love to read about History. Even though this is a really good book, it is slow to read. It takes a lot of time to get through the pages because of the overproduction of storytelling.

This war was doomed from the beginning. Donaldson takes us back to the period before WW II when France tried to colonize and rule a farflung oriental possession. The Chinese failed, then the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and finally the US.
I've read this book twice. Once from a historian's perspective, and the second time from a military leader's perspective. Davidson is not a historian, but he is a knowledgable military leader who saw the war from inside, close up and from the perspectives of the civilian leadership decisionmaking (or lack thereof). Make no mistake, as you can imagine as a military leader, he comes down hard on the civilian leadership during the war, and rightfully so. As he said in the book, we needed a leader as president during that time and a president who would talk to the American people about the war and what was going on. We got neither. Both Johnson and later Nixon were probably the worst at keeping us informed on decisions and the course of the war. Instead we got slanted views from the media and were led to distrust what was coming from our military leadership during that time. We won the war militarily, no doubt, especially from 1965-1969. The US armed forces were superb on the battlefield. However, we lost the war in the court of public opinion and on the evening news through biased reporting and overemphasis on "body counts".
Donaldson's descriptions and examples of such key battles or operations as Tet, Rolling Thunder, and Khe Sanh from the American involvement, and Dien Bien Phu and other French debacles are poignant and accurate. We tried to defend a land and people who had never had to stand up for themselves. We have paid for it ever since. We will do it again somewhere else. Read this book with Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam a History" for a combined perspective on military aspects and a historians view.

Lieutenant General Davidson (ret.) does a great job summarizing and analyzing the French war in IndoChina from 1946-1954, but fails miserably with the US campaign of 1965-1967 of which he was a part (as USMACV J-2, senior US intelligence officer in Vietnam). The author is a major apologist for General Westmoreland. Also, too much of the book centers on Washington politics rather than operational matters (which is a shame, he could have shed much light on the intelligence picture in the crucial 1967-8 campaigns). Davidson ignores the crucial Battle of Ap Bac in 1963, the Son Tay Raid, My Lai massacre and the participation of allies (ROK, Australia). The Crucial Tet campaign is glossed over - he never mentions the bloody Battle for Hue. The author is far too political and seems intent to present a white-washed "history". Maps are somewhat crude but plentiful and accurate.

I am truly hating this book. I am still slogging through it as I have a genuine desire to understand the Vietnam conflict in detail. When I see coverage of the vietnam war in the media - be it films, or documentaries, I want to know how they relate to the big picture and understand both sides of the struggle. However, this book is so painful I really dont know if I will make it to the end.

The main problem is that Davidson has some major faults as a historian. First, as a previous reviewer mentioned, he definitely glosses over a lot. This is obvious to anyone reading the book who will immediately notice how vacous some descriptions are. Some of the accounts just dont feel full fleshed enough and it is from such a high level you are not drawn into the description.

Next, I was incredibly annoyed by his style. He seems to make some base assumptions about the readers knowledge of the war, and as such he makes comentary about decisions which recks any anticipation. For example, in a truly gripping historical account which makes the reader interested in the topic and rams facts into your head, you detail a political decision. You then show the reader how this grows into a real world action or series of actions. Then you critique the decision as an interesting summarization point of view. This book however, is plagued with examples of jumping the gun, where Davidson will detail some decision or political action, put in some personal critique explaining why this will be a terrible decision, then documents in dry detail (and sometimes not even too much detail) what happened. Of course you know what is going to happen already as he has thrashed it out in agonizing detail from a political / intelligence officer viewpoint already.

The end effect of all this is that the book is hopelessly and awfully boring. My personal view is that historical accounts have a duty to educate the reader by being interesting enough that the facts stick. This is fluffy enough that it couldn't be used as a referrence book, and terrible enough that I beg everyone out there to stick well clear of it.

This work encompasses all that Vietnam was - the political struggle, the military entanglement, and the general idea of how Vietnam was a gaping sinkhole.

The author seems too obsessed with the appearances of the generals involved.