This impressively detailed study traces the gradual U.S. entanglement in Vietnam, from the early days of the Truman administration to the early 1960s when the South Vietnamese government formally requested that President Kennedy send U.S. Special Forces teams. Arnold discusses Truman's rejection of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh version of Vietnamese nationalism, explains our reluctant support of France's post-WW II colonial reassertion in Southeast Asia, recounts how North Korea's 1950 invasion of the South caused immediate reverberations in Vietnam and reveals how close the U.S. came to direct military intervention in 1954 during the Vietminh's siege of the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu. The book also analyzes President Eisenhower's critical 1955 decisions relating to Indochina: accepting the burden of training the South Vietnamese Army, authorizing the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and aligning U.S. policy with the flawed leadership of President Ngo Dinh Diem. By the author of the Bantam History of the Vietnam War , this authoritative review explains clearly how the U.S. got caught in the quagmire. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Arnold offers a balanced, concise introduction to the decision-making surrounding American intervention in Vietnam. He concentrates on the Eisenhower administration (1953-61), but provides the needed background with a survey of the Truman years and touches on how existing policy affected the Kennedy team. The influence of prominent individuals (John Foster Dulles, Arthur Radford, "Lightning Joe" Collins, Ngo Dinh Diem, and the always-fascinating Edward Lansdale) on the sometimes torturous foreign policy process is a key element in understanding the rationale underlying White House actions. Arnold provides the necessary preface to the final scenes on the embassy roof in Saigon. Recommended for Vietnam collections.
- John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Thorough, thoughtful history of America's road to Vietnam, by Arnold (Bantam History of the Vietnam War--not reviewed). Beginning with Ho Chi Minh, then a 36-year-old seaman being inspired during WW II by FDR's antiimperialist rhetoric, Arnold traces the American mistakes--starting with FDR's failure to brief Truman fully on foreign policy--that eventually led Ho into bloody conflict with the US. According to Arnold, Ho's political innocence, magnetic leadership, and desire for an alliance with America were delineated by OSS reports, as was his determination: ``If you do not help us achieve our goal [ending French rule], I know a country that will be only too glad to.'' Arnold pinpoints de Gaulle's artful invocation of the Communist threat as the key to the US/French alliance in Indochina and explains how America failed to grasp the meaning of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. He confirms that ``the U.S. government indeed had a large investment of money and prestige riding on the battle's outcome....'' In fact, as the battle for Dien Bien Phu stretched on, he says, a US carrier task force was put on alert and the US quietly moved to the brink of war. As these events began to receive media coverage in the US, President-to-be Kennedy got national attention for speaking of the need of the people to know ``the blunt truth about Indochina'' if they were ``for the fourth time in this century to travel the long and tortuous road of war.'' Eisenhower's response to Kennedy was his famous ``domino theory,'' with Indochina perceived as the first piece likely to fall. An engrossing account of America's path to disaster, with Eisenhower's commitment to Indochina and Ho's growing disaffection with the US set in expert counterpoint. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.