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Arnold R. Isaacs

Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia Paperback – January 27, 1999

by Arnold R. Isaacs (Author)

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Still the best account of the last years of the Vietnam War, written by the author of the acclaimed Vietnam Shadows

A gripping account of one of the century's most harrowing human catastrophes―the fall of South Vietnam―Without Honor captures the tragedy and the irony of the Vietnam War's last days and examines the consequences of the American military and political decisions that had sustained the war effort for a generation only to lead to the worst foreign policy failure in the nation's history. Arnold Isaacs, who spent the final years of the war in Vietnam as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, describes his firsthand observations of the collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam―from the 1973 Paris peace agreement to the American evacuation of Saigon and its aftermath―with heartbreaking detail, from the devastated battlefields and villages to the boats filled with terrified refugees. He also provides an historical record of unparalleled accuracy and depth about the strategic decisions made during the war's end game and the intelligence failure that led Americans and their Southeast Asian allies to underestimate the strength and perseverance of the enemy. Drawing on previously classified military documents, field reports from American advisors, eyewitness accounts by soldiers and civilians, and North Vietnamese propaganda broadcasts, Isaacs offers a compelling and compassionate portrait of the impact of America's "Vietnamization" of the conflict and a bracing indictment of political and military leaders in the United States and both Vietnams for the massive human suffering that accompanied the end of the war.

Print length

576 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date

January 27, 1999
Dimensions

6 x 1.34 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0801861071
ISBN-13

978-0801861079
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Reportage at its very best, conveying even now a breathtaking kind of immediacy... This is a meaty, fact-rich book, peppered with interpretations, not judgments... Without Honor deserves attention, for it offers vivid recollections of key moments in the war, set down with honesty by a man who saw and felt deeply."

(Douglas Pike New York Times Book Review)

"Vivid and very passionate... [Isaacs] succeeds so brilliantly that one almost wishes―before our near-universal national forgetfulness and instinct for self-justification take over for good―that all candidates for public office could be required to pass a public examination of its contents."

(Gene Lyons Newsweek)

"Impassioned... Isaacs's anguished chapter on the collapse of the city of Da Nang, where the first American Marines had landed in 1965, is reason enough to read his fast-paced report."

(John Spragens, Jr. Commonweal)

"A sound and interesting narrative, which succeeds in combining vivid images of the war with the statistics and analysis that are essential of historical perspective... A good book."

(Times Literary Supplement)

"A wonderful weave of Isaacs' eyeball-reporting and subsequent, intense research. The thud and blood of combat in the wailing of mortally wounded nations are here. So are the softer sounds of negotiations, riffled documents, the sigh of broken agreements, and the tinkle of glass on conference tables."

(Paul Dean Los Angeles Times Book Review)

"The most complete account of the fall of Indochina... A biting indictment of American policy... The immediacy and impact of his book is compelling."

(Reviews in American History)

"Without Honor is a courageous and honest book about a period of American history which most would rather forget."

(Seymour Hersh)

Book Description

Still the best account of the last years of the Vietnam War, written by the author of the acclaimed Vietnam Shadows

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Johns Hopkins University Press; Revised ed. edition (January 27, 1999)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 576 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801861071
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801861079
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.62 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.34 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,180,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,166 in Southeast Asia History
- #5,591 in Vietnam War History (Books)
- #6,848 in Chinese History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
8 ratings

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Arnold R. Isaacs

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5 star		66%
4 star 0% (0%)		0%
3 star		26%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star		9%

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Charles A. Krohn

Trust USA, but have a Plan B, in case we change our minds.

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2015

Verified Purchase

I served slightly more than two years in Vietnam, and have always been proud of my service. But as an American, reading for the first time the details of our betrayal and hasty departure, I am depressed, perhaps clinically at times, after reading the details of this super-depressing book. Those who think America does little wrong, all things considered, should avoid this work. But those who wonder why many countries harbor suspicions about getting too close to us, based on our behavior in Vietnam in its final hours, will react to this book about the same way I have. I know we tired of the war, after expending blood and treasure. But the way we withdrew in the midst of the Watergate scandal and Nixon's collapse, will be a source of shame for many years.

7 people found this helpful

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Tom Weiner

but I feel like I am learning why the so-called "peace with honor" ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

I've not yet finished Mr. Isaacs book, but I feel like I am learning why the so-called "peace with honor" the American public was sold on was a giant fabrication on every page. The book is gripping, terrifically well-written and illuminating. I recommend it highly to anyone who cares about American history and learning another tragic story that has been either neglected or mis-taught.

3 people found this helpful

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Robert S. Ball

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

As described and fast shipping

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

No one could be better qualified to tell the true story.

2 people found this helpful

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SFORD

Witness to Slaughter

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2013

Verified Purchase

Fantastic book about little known tragedies of the Vietnam War. Ninety thousand refugees left DaNang for Phu Quoc Island.... and about forty thousand ultimately went ashore. It was ugly... I was there on a Navy ship. Nobody talks about Phu Quoc Island, but I remember it every day.

6 people found this helpful

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Richard F.

Book In Very Used Condition

Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is in very used condition and not worth the price charged.

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M. Frost

A serious journalistic look at the end of 3 wars: Cambodia, Laos, & Vietnam, 1973-75

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2018

This is NOT your standard military history. Isaacs, a journalist who spent years in SE Asia covering the events in question, is far too close to the material to write that. And he appears intent, and rightly so, on putting human faces to these events. Events that are more than just military, including social, cultural, and economic. Often the human faces of civilians and soldiers suffering in Cambodia, Laos, and S. Vietnam to defeat their respective communist threats. Whether wounded, hungry, or homeless. Or an oppressed minority group.

This work is so valuable because Isaacs looks at all of SE Asia and the key players. He integrates it all into a coherent whole. Dissecting the respective wars, showing how they were related and unrelated. They meant different things to the key parties: N. Vietnam, PRC, Russia, S. Vietnam and USA.

This work will bring tears to anyone interested in SE Asia. It is raw and real. Capturing the nature of the horrors. I was in the USAF, 13th AF HQ, at Clark AB in 1990 monitoring Soviet Tu-95/142 Bear withdrawals from Cam Ranh Bay. The memories of combat events there were still impacting the higher-ranking officers I briefed (e.g., a Vice Commander with a Mig-19 model in his office, commemorating his shooting it down over N. Vietnam!). And if you ever asked combat veterans about their experiences, you either received a flood of information or a shaking of a head to signify you'd get silence.

Thankfully, besides a very highly readable text that moves along nicely, there are also good sourcing (see the Notes), a good Bibliography, and a good Index. The combat discussions are broad enough that the bare maps do work. Plus there are many good photographs!

Isaacs does say a lot about Cambodia, and chastises Nixon and Kissinger for events there. However, I would advise anyone interested in that conflict to read the great work by Deac (1998), The Road to the Killing Fields. Deac, who was there, has a far better grasp of the people, history and events, and delves far deeper into the reality that was in reality an intra-Cambodian conflict between those tied to Lon Nol and those tied to Prince Sihanouk regarding how to handle what had turned into a N. Vietnamese occupation and control of a huge swathe of Cambodian territory. Sadly, Sihanouk, the opportunist, turns toward the PRC, N. Vietnam, and ultimately the Khmer Rouge, who are allowed to destroy Cambodia to impose a bizarre form of rural agrarian utopian "communism", all to advance the PRC's interests and ensure N. Vietnam had its border sanctuaries with S. Vietnam, from which it launched the fateful Highlands Offensive in 1975 that broke the back of S. Vietnam.

I would argue there is one critical military flaw in Isaac's overall analysis. As records have shown, neither the PRC nor the USSR was willing to engage the USA directly if in 1965-67 the USA had taken aggressive military action directly against N. Vietnam. One never wins a war allowing your enemy to have sanctuaries along borders like Cambodia & Laos. Nor did the USA fight in Korea like we did in Vietnam. There we pounded N. Korea back nearly into a feudal society, if not almost the Stone Age, and they relied on the PRC to provide essentially all of the military assistance in 1951-53 that kept the war going. A lesson here is one wins wars by bringing the conflict directly home to the aggressor. One ponders what might have been USA landings in parts of N. Vietnam and aggressive bombardments and bombings all over and around Hanoi and Haiphong in say 1966 and 1967. Would Tet even have happened in 1968? Sadly, Johnson halted his very limited aggressive bombing in 1968 and Nixon waited until late 1972 to make it a reality for the N. Vietnamese regime.

This is a review of the 1983 first edition hard back, which appears essentially identical to the later "rev. ed.", at least from the table of contents and preview of that work shown here.

3 people found this helpful

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J. Hennessy

Veterans stiffen your lip against poltroons like this, and don't read this garbage

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2016

Admit I did not read it, but I read the authors Bio and his critique of other books on the subject. My conclusion is this guy is a straight up commie lover, committed to a disinformation campaign. Veterans stiffen your lip against poltroons like this, and don't read this garbage.

2 people found this helpful

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Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia Paperback – January 27, 1999

Editorial Reviews

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About the author

Arnold R. Isaacs

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