Vietnam - A History

Vietnam – A History  by Stanley Karnow

Most everyone in America agrees that the entire war in Vietnam was a very big mistake.  There are a lot of reasons why – some actual fact, some innuendo, some outright falsehoods.  Stanley Karnow’s excellent Pulitzer Prize narrative does an outstanding job giving the reader a very clear, yet thorough account of all of the comings and goings around the Asian country before, during, and even after the conflict.  This book was incredibly enlightening.  Much of it had to do with the fact that the author was actually there during the war, serving as a war correspondent.  He’s also interviewed many key figures several years after the conflict to try to add some perspective to many of the events that we now look back on in bewilderment and disgust.

It should first be pointed out that this entire book is not only about the actual war in Vietnam.  That event is the main player, however, yet Karnow realizes that a lot of background is needed before the reader can truly understand why things happened the way that they did.  In fact, I seemed to recall that the first (approximately) 300 pages of this book deals with what happened prior to the actual “war” that was fought by the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.  This might be a turnoff for some, but I found the whole background portion of this book incredibly helpful and highly interesting.

The first chapter deals with present day conditions (the book was written in the 1980s, then revised sometime in the 1990s).  The author tells us that even though the United States “lost” the war, conditions are still insufferable, and the country is, by no means a thriving nation.  Nobody really “won” this war.  We then go back – way back, to the beginning of recorded history including the French colonization during the 1800s.  It seems that the French decided to occupy this country because, well, they could.  Besides, if they didn’t, another powerful nation would do so anyway.  Sadly, that’s how countries did things back then.  Enter communist leader Ho Chi Minh who abhors this arrangement, and his followers decide to successfully fight the French during the 1950s, culminating with the fall of Dien Bien Phu.

Well, after the conclusion of World War II, the United States believed that any country wanting to become communist would be a threat to worldwide matters someday (Google “The Domino Theory”), so after the French fail, the U.S. slowly steps into the quagmire.  The Nationalist South Vietnamese are the “good guys”, so America’s goal is to build them up, support them and fight side by side until they can run the show themselves.  The problem is the South Vietnamese government is a joke.  Basically, the United States wanted South Vietnam to win the war more than the South Vietnamese did.  Right after their aloof leader, Ngo Dihn Diem is exiled and assassinated, President Kennedy is also assassinated.  Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson is essentially thrown into this mess, and doesn’t really want any part of this war (contrary to what Oliver Stone told you).  Johnson comes across as an incredibly bad leader.  He seems to think that by doing something silly like inviting Ho Chi Minh to his Texas ranch over a heaping plate of bar-b-que brisket will somehow fix the problem and smooth over relations.  

Well, Johnson and his team make a mess of things, and he essentially declines to run for re-election in 1968 because of his failure.  Enter Richard Nixon who doesn’t seem to do much better.  Even though Nixon does ultimately end the U.S. involvement and bring the boys back home, most agree that he did too little too late because he was trying to achieve “Peace with Honor”.  So the troops come home, Vietnam really never achieves “Peace with Honor” and the North Vietnamese conquer Saigon only a couple years later.  Fortunately, the new U.S. President, Gerald Ford, realizes that the war was a lost cause and has no intention of jumping back in to save the fledgling, uncooperative South Vietnam.

One of the most fascinating observations that I encountered while reading this book was the realization that, had Vietnam not happened, then it probably would have happened someplace else in some other war.  In other words, the United States was so convinced that they couldn’t lose a war, that they kept fighting in archaic, untested fashions over and over again.  At some point, they argued, the enemy simply had to capitulate.  Sadly, we sometimes don’t learn such lessons until after the fact.  It’s actually a good thing that whenever a potential global conflict now occurs that the U.S. will, or might, get involved in, that the question  always comes up “Will this be another Vietnam?”  So sadly, the war became a very painful, yet probably necessary, lesson for the United States to learn.

The hardest part about reading this book was the monosyllable Asian names of the main players.  To my Western mind, it could get very confusing to keep all of the names clear when you read Minh, Diem, Gap, Nu, Thuc, etc. etc.  Fortunately, the author provides a useful “cast of characters” at the end of the book that serves as a handy reference.  

I would have also liked to have read more about the common soldiers’ experiences.  Being that the author is a well known and respected journalist, we get plenty of insight (often from firsthand interviews) of many at the top, but much of the suffering and personal experiences of the soldiers on the battlefield doesn’t quite get as much attention as I would have liked.

I also thought the book ended rather abruptly.  We read about the choppers evacuating the American Embassy in 1975, then that’s it.  Perhaps some of the first chapter could have been told at the end as opposed to the beginning?  Minor complaints, however.  This might be the only book you’ll ever have to read about this truly sad time in America’s history.