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This may be the most important single book about the Vietnam War. For it resolves the single most important issue that divided America for more than a decade. The State Department issued a major "white paper" in February 1975 entitled "Aggression from the North" and including photographs of captured Soviet and Chinese weapons. The anti-war movement claimed that was a "lie" and the conflict in Vietnam was but a "civil war" in South Vietnam between oppressive, U.S.-supported governments and the "National Liberation Front" that merely wanted peace, human rights, and an end to foreign occupation. In this book, Hanoi admits that the Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam ("Workers" or Communist Party of Vietnam) made a decision on May 19, 1959--more than 5 years before Congress enacted an AUMF authorizing the President to use U.S. armed forces to defend South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos from Communist aggression--to open the Ho Chi Minh Trail and start sending troops, weapons, and supplied through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam to overthrow its government by force. Put simply, thanks to Hanoi, we now know our Government was correct and the so-called "peace" movement (everyone wanted "peace," the issue was whether it would best be achieved by upholding the non-aggression provisions of the UN Charter and SEATO Treaty or by allowing aggression to go unchallenged) was wrong.
To be sure, there were other issues. Protesters said cutting off American aid and withdrawing our troops would "stop the killing" and promote human rights. The answer to those questions came from the behavior of Communist leaders in North Vietnam and Cambodia (where the Yale sdsdUniversity Cambodian Genocide Program concluded that the Khmer Rough ("Red Cambodians") killed more than 20% of the population of Cambodia in the first three years following"liberation"). Under pressure from the anti-Vietnam movement, Congress in May 1973 made it unlawful for the President to spend treasury funds on combat operations by U.S. military forces in the air, on the ground, or off the shore of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia--snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and consigning millions of people America had pledged its honor to protect to death and tens of millions to Stalinist tyranny. (At one point, in their annual human rights assessment Freedom House described the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam as being less free than China, about the same as North Korea. So much for promoting "human rights.")
I've been teaching seminars on the war for more than 25 years at the University of Virginia, and highly recommend this volume for anyone who wants to sort through the claims and counter-claims that so divided the nation 40-50 years ago. It is not an easy read and it is filled with Communist propaganda, but it definitively answers the most fundamental question underlying the debate. While Hanoi's aggression was covert and accompanied by a brilliant propaganda campaign that deceived large numbers of gullible Americans to undermine their government's efforts, America's efforts to protect South Vietnam were every bit as legal and noble as our commitments to stop armed aggression in Korea and World War II.
- Series: Modern War Studies
- Hardcover: 520 pages
- Publisher: University Press of Kansas; First edition (May 1, 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0700611754
- ISBN-13: 978-0700611751
- Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
- Customer Reviews: 4 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#3,103,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3360 in Southeast Asia History
- #5221 in Vietnam War History (Books)
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