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Stuart A. Herrington
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Silence Was a Weapon Mass Market Paperback – April 12, 1987

by Stuart A. Herrington (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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The author describes the difficulties that obstructed his government assignment to uproot insurgency in the Vietnamese villages and hamlets between February 1971 and August 1972
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  1. Print length
    279 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Ballantine Books
  4. Publication date
    April 12, 1987
  5. ISBN-10
    0804101051
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0804101059
  7. See all details
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  1. Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix: A Personal Account
    Stuart Herrington
     
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books (April 12, 1987)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 279 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804101051
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804101059
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

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Stuart A. Herrington

Stuart A. Herrington

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4.7 out of 5 stars
17 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • B. Langford
    5.0 out of 5 stars SUCCINCTLY EXPLAINS THE REAL "WHY" OF OUR LOSS
    Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    As a Vietnam vet who was involved for a year with the Phoenix Program, and as one who has read over 30 different volumes of analysis written about the war in the years following it, this short volume does more to explain exactly why we lost everything. We could have swept the country with 50 divisions the size of the 1st , or the 25th, or the 82nd, or the 101st, or all the Marine divisions that could have been mustered, and we would still have lost. Major Herrington says simply that we lost it because it was fought in the villages and hamlets; and there were thousands of those all over the country with 100s of people in each amounting to the population of the country. You don't win a war like that using conventional forces. Sadly, in the end, the Vietnamese themselves didn't demonstrate the will to fight the unconventional war. And none of us will ever forget our humiliating departure in those last choppers from the roof of the Saigon embassy.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Pete
    5.0 out of 5 stars The book arrived quickly and was in the condition as described
    Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Good book, but this isn't the place for a review
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  • bobscof
    5.0 out of 5 stars More interesting to me since I served in the same area the year before the author was there
    Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I disliked that the same book is sold under two different titles: this and "Stalking the Viet Cong" which I also purchased at the same time. This book was especially interesting to me since I had been assigned to many of the same locations as the author. However, his assessment of the situation gave me a much greater appreciation of what was going on around me during my year there.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Timothy Reboletti
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great book covering Vietnam.
    Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2022
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    A great book that covers the successes, failures, and problem sets of Vietnam’s counter insurgency.
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  • Daniel E Swiger
    3.0 out of 5 stars I'm glad he took the effort & time to do it ...
    Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Since this predates Stuart's "Peace With Honor?" book I will cut him slack.
    It's a little hard to read for stretches. The accounts & dialog are not as smooth as the other book.
    Still, I'm glad he took the effort & time to do it since it's another good piece of the puzzle that has tormented me
    Other good books on Vietnam are McMaster's "Dereliction of Duty" & Sorley's "A better War"
    I think the collection from Herrington, Sorely & McMaster, cover significant parts of the puzzle that was the war in Vietnam.
    The bungling, deceit, arrogance, corruption, political cowardice and small-bright moments are all there to add to your internal conflicts.
    But then ultimately for me, it help me get past that and accept there are no easy answers to this dark part of our history
    2 people found this helpful
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  • H Cooper
    5.0 out of 5 stars True story of a worthy adventure, very well told.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I had a job similar to Herrington's in Vietnam. This is the first book I have actually enjoyed reading about all that. Herrington is an excellent story teller, and he doesn't try to twist things around to purge inner devils or refight the ideological battle. He was there, and he was right, but it wasn't easy. It especially wasn't easy to walk away in the end and abandon the innocents and our commitments to them.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Scott D. Orr
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Books on Counterinsurgency I've Ever Read
    Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2006
    I read this in a counterinsurgency course in college--the book was so good that, despite the fact that it was out of print, the professor photocopied it for all of us (no, I don't recommend that you all violate copyrights :).

    The unique thing about this book--what makes it indispensable in studying Vietnam and counterinsurgency more generally--is that Stuart Herrington, before being stationed in Vietnam as an intelligence officer, learned Vietnamese fluently. Thus, he was able to talk with all of the Vietnamese (including the peasants), and not merely the educated, English-speaking ones, and he was often privy to what the Vietnamese said to one another, thinking no Americans would understand them.

    Herrington served in Vietnam in the early 1970's, and documented the changes in tactics that took place as Creighton Abrams replaced William Westmoreland as the U.S. commander, and as U.S forces were drawn down. Abrams was far more effective than his predecessor, replacing the blunt instrument of search-and-destroy missions with intelligence-gathering and small, targeted raids, while paying attention to maintaining good relations with the civilian population in the villages. The effectiveness of Abrams' new tactics is often forgotten, since they came after the war had been lost politically at home.

    Herrington's most insightful observation--and one that needs to be drilled into the head of anyone contemplating the subject of counterinsurgency--is that the Vietnamese, for the most part, did their best not to take part in the conflict, but ended up drawn into it anyway. He estimated that about 10% of the population supported the Communists, another 5% the government of South Vietnam, and the rest--about 85%--were what Herrington called the "U" group, willing to support either side when it appeared necessary or advantageous to do so. Herrington thus makes the point that Vietnam was not so much a conflict against "the Vietnamese", but a contest for their loyalty--or at least, the conditional loyalty of enough of them to deprive the other side of support and defeat the remaining minority loyal to it. In such a conflict, merely "destroying the enemy" will not win the war--not if "the enemy" is potentially 95% of the population.
    22 people found this helpful
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  • Sgt. Rock
    5.0 out of 5 stars A good book about what it was like to be a junior intelligence officer in Vietnam
    Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2013
    Stuart Herrington is a good and honest man because he describes in this book how as an intelligence officer an instance where he participated enough combat to earn the coveted CIB but declined to be awarded the badge because he felt he did not fully earn it in his opinion despite the fact that it would have looked good in his 201 file and would have helped his career progression. He describes how although he technically worked for the Phoenix program what a bust that program was at least in the P.R department with helping maintain support for the war in the media and on main street back in the good old US of A. This book teaches a lot how intelligence is generated , analyzed and used in a COIN war. It is still relevant today in places like Afghanistan and elsewhere.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • MonsieurCanon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on February 8, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    The VietNam war from a different perspective. Well worth the read.
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