Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975, Hastings - B+

            "The struggle for Vietnam...lasted three decades and cost between two and three million lives." It destroyed "one US president and contributed to the downfall of a second." The war "was predominantly an Asian tragedy, upon which a US nightmare was overlaid: around forty Vietnamese perished for every American."

            Vietnam was occupied by imperialist France in the late 19th century. By the 1930's, a few hundred French families dominated the 70%of a populace that lived in near-slavery. It was a world of  "institutionalized cruelty" that Nguyen Sinh Cung was born into in 1890. The world would later know him as Ho Chi Minh (Bringer of Light). Young Ho would become a Vietnamese nationalist, revolutionary and communist. By 1940, he was the leader of the Vietnam Independence League (Vietminh). As WWII ended, he declared independence from France. The French announced "ironclad opposition" and began a war that would eventually cost them 90,000 dead. Ho's ruthless and vicious tactics afforded him the chance to dominate the north and rule from Hanoi. The French, motivated to retain all of their colonies in order to restore their dignity, occupied Saigon. The French then captured Haiphong and Hanoi while Ho and his military leader, Giap, turned to guerilla warfare.  The Chinese communists began to help their Vietnamese colleagues in 1949. The Vietminh were soon able to field armies in the north, and in 1951, inflicted major casualties upon the French while capturing vast amounts of abandoned material. 

          The French found a willing paymaster in the US. After the loss of China and the beginning of the Korean War, we would make no distinction between colonialism and anti-communism. The US poured billions into the French effort and encouraged them to seek a definitive battle. The French selected a place called Dienbienphu. They began to occupy the valley 175 miles west of Hanoi in late 1953. Eventually, twelve thousand men fought for the France at what was called a fortress. Slowly, the Vietminh dragged equipment into place as they spent  months surrounding the garrison. It became obvious to the French that their presence in the valley was an egregious error, but they would not walk away. Paris insisted on fighting. The country was ruled "by men burdened by the humiliations of the previous decade and thus constrained in every decision by a yearning to restore national honor, revive la patrie's glory." Giap attacked on March 13th. Soon, the airstrip was closed, artillery battered every corner of the camp, and infantry began to overrun the outer defenses. They surrendered in early May. The US had thought long and hard about intervening, but could not garner the necessary congressional approval.

      Attention turned to Geneva, where the British and Soviets were conducting a conference on Vietnam at which John Foster Dulles turned his back when Zhou Enlai extended his hand. A division of the country was settled upon at the 17th parallel with elections to follow. The French would leave and Ho would lead the north and Diem the south. The British, French, Chinese and Soviets endorsed the Accords, but neither Vietnamese delegation did, nor did the US. The north and south "both fell into the hands of oppressive authoritarian regimes." Nonetheless, a million people fled south as the communists destroyed the middle and upper classes. Collectivization and outright slaughter were the north's policies. The focus of Ho and Giap was internal. War and aggravating the Americans were not on their agenda.

      The south of the country was untouched by war and was home to the Mekong Delta, a rice-producing powerhouse. It was immeasurably more prosperous than the north. However, it was led by a man lacking in charm, unloved by the people, and seemingly uninterested in them as well. Diem, appointed by the French puppet emperor, Bao Dai, was a Catholic in a Buddhist world. For most folks, he seemed a continuation of colonialism. Dulles tried to remove him in 1956 but failed. As American money poured in, corruption ran amok and extended to Diem's family. Corruption, nepotism, favoritism of Catholics, persecution of critics, and a failure to initiate land reform were just some of Diem's problems. "The regime's domestic excesses and shortcomings, rather than its failure to hold reunification elections, provided communists with the tinder to rekindle the war in the South." In the late 50's, southerners asked Hanoi for permission to fight. It was reluctantly granted. In 1959, the Vietcong killed two American advisors in an attack on an ARVN position. A year later, the VC picked up the pace, brutally terrorizing the population and exhorting against the government in Saigon. From the perspective of the US, the problems of South Vietnam were not governance problems, but a security issue requiring a military response. 

     There were some in the Kennedy administration who tried to counter the communists on a social level, but for the majority the belief was "that military power...could achieve political objectives in post-colonial states." Under JFK, the number of military advisors grew from 400 to 16,000. The life and death struggle with communism would continue. The early 60's were a foreshadowing of what was to come. The VC ratcheted things up, the ARVN mostly avoided fighting, the US press pointed it all out, and MACV told Washington everything was going great. The spring of 1963 saw the Diem government begin its final downward spiral. The ARVN lost a pitched battle in the Mekong Delta, security forces violently suppressed a Buddhist protest in Hue, and a Buddhist priest self-immolated in front of western cameras in Saigon. With explicit US approval, the Vietnamese generals disposed of Diem a few weeks before JFK was assassinated. In the north, an aggressive Le Duan succeeded an aging Ho, and with an increase in aid from the Chinese, prepared to pursue unification.

   The decision makers in Washington feared losing to the communists more than anything else and thought about either bombing or invading the north. The US was regularly dropping commandos off in the north, and in August of 1964, there was  contact between a US destroyer and some North Vietnamese patrol boats. The USS Maddox was ultimately found to have a single bullet hole on its upper works. We retaliated with our first bombing of the north. LBJ and McNamara, characterizing the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an attack on America, received from Congress near unanimous approval to our "taking all necessary measures." LBJ was elected in a landslide by a populace that could reasonably conclude war was not on the horizon. He famously said he would not "send American boys to fight a war Asian boys should fight for themselves." Yet, once the election passed, the administration began studying its escalation options. It was obvious to all that the south would soon succumb without direct American military action. "A dramatic expansion of America's war in Vietnam became inevitable."

   The new year saw the VC increase its terror tactics and for the first time, regulars from the north came south to fight. The administration knew a war would be unwinnable, but was afraid to tell the America people or Congress how hopeless it looked. The ongoing turnover of leadership in the south with coup after coup, when combined with the ARVN's lack of will, pointed to abject and immediate failure. VP Humphrey,  Sens. Mansfield and Russell and Democratic eminence grise Clark Clifford all encouraged the President to not fight. Nonetheless, McNamara continued to encourage the president to escalate. Haunted by history- the appeasement at Munich, the loss of China and the ambiguity of Korea - LBJ began to send US troops that spring. Soon, we had 175,000 men there.

     By the end of 1966, there were 385,000 Americans in Vietnam, 6,000 fatalities and a cost of $15B for the year. The US poured vast amounts of money into the country, fueling pervasive corruption throughout Vietnamese society and the US military. The USAF bombed and napalmed the country with limited effect on the enemy. The Army and Marines conducted thousands of search and destroy missions with little consequence. While the VC terrorized specific members of the populace, the US policies of indiscriminate violence killed many as well. 

     The US also escalated the bombing of the north, but it never produced the desired results. The primary problem was that there really wasn't much to bomb. North Vietnam was a primitive agricultural society. Because LBJ did not wish to risk Soviet or Chinese retaliation, Haiphong harbor was off limits, as were targets within specific distances from Hanoi and the Chinese border. The north built up its anti-aircraft skills with Soviet equipment and eventually downed 2,600 Navy and Air Force planes. One of the more important consequences of the bombing was that it rallied the north against the US menace from the air.

        Nineteen sixty-seven saw the war intensify and the anti-war movement begin to fiercely oppose it in the states. "The consequences of the rising tide of domestic turbulence were profound" and led to an army "infected by a cult of dissent, drugs, and disbelief." That summer saw Hanoi call for decisive victory through a general offensive-uprising. It was also the year that saw the upgraded M16 in the hands of infantrymen in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the weapon jammed in the jungle and caused endless problems for the grunts. The Army's reaction - classify the information and deny the truth of what the US men were experiencing. 

       January 30, 1968, Tet, was arguably the most important day in the thirty-year history of the Vietnam War. The north unleashed all it had across the entire country and suffered massive casualties. Only a few hundred southerners joined in. Although the US and the south prevailed, it cost LBJ the WH because Tet destroyed the fallacy of MACV that victory was around the corner The broadcasting of touch and go fighting in Saigon, particularly at the American Embassy, proved that very little had been accomplished in three years of US involvement. "Perception is critical, and the events of February 1968 became a perceptional disaster for American arms." Sixty-seven thousand fighters attacked 36 of the country's 44 provincial capitals. A small commando unit breached the walls at the Embassy and their feat was broadcast around the world. Also flashing around the world was one of the most famous pictures of the war, an ARVN officer blowing the brains out of a captured VC. Art Buchwald wrote with a Little Big Horn dateline that George Armstrong Custer now sees "the light at the end of the tunnel." The most severe fighting took place in Hue where it took almost the entire month to displace the NVA from the city. The NVA and VC were demoralized by the loss of a third of their attackers. Indeed, they had put so much into their failed effort that it would take years for them to recover. But it mattered not. On February 27th, Walter Cronkite stunned America. "To say we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of evidence...optimists who have been wrong...To say we are mired in a stalemate seems the only realistic yet unsatisfactory conclusion...It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out is to negotiate-not as victors, but as honorable people who lived up to their pledge to victory and democracy and did the best they could." Gloom descended on the WH. A month later, Johnson announced he would not run again. In May, the US and North Vietnamese began desultory talks in Paris. The war continued and the year 1968 would end with 16,899 more dead Americans. After one of the most tumultuous years in US history, Richard Nixon would now try to find peace with honor.

    The NVA and VC suffered through casualties and supply challenges knowing that they would eventually win. It was clear that the US did not have the willpower to push through to any semblance of victory. Indeed, the US Army was "crumbling from within." It was now plagued by drug abuse, racial strife and lack of discipline. "From 1968 until the end, the effectiveness of American forces was in serious decline."Nixon and Kissinger felt that the US could not walk away and, at the same time, did not have plan, even though Nixon had campaigned saying he had one to end the war. They expanded it by authorizing the bombing of Cambodia and began to withdraw American combat troops, replacing them with ARVN soldiers. In late April, 1970, US and ARVN soldiers invaded Cambodia, leading to massive anti-war disturbances in the US. In early 1971, a heavily US supported ARVN invasion of Laos was an total failure, one that led to the WH becoming very concerned about whether Vietnamization could hold the war together until after the 1972 elections. In March 1972, the north unleashed a major offensive in the Central Highlands. Throughout the spring, the southerners fell back under the unrelenting northern efforts. In response, Nixon unleashed the heaviest bombing of the war. The southerners eventually prevailed in the battles of 1972, leaving both sides emotionally and physically exhausted.

     The ultimate settlement comprised many provisions, but only two counted. The communists could stay wherever they were in the south and the US would leave. The north was certain it would be only matter of time. Nixon and Kissinger were sure they had obtained the 'decent interval' they were hoping for. The happiest consequence of the peace for the US was the return of the 588 POW's. The war continued without the US. Two years later in April, 1975 Saigon fell. The communists brutalized the losers. As for the US, a general summed it up best: "The Vietnam war did more to change this country than anything in our recent history. It created a suspicion and mistrust we've never been able to redeem."

   An American professor at the University of Texas, and an author of a Vietnam history reviewed the book for the Times. He states, that unlike most historians who try to shade the war in gray, Hastings sees it in black and white. The only real problem is that it's all black. Hastings castigates the barbarism of the communists, the incompetence of the southerners and the the American penchant for destroying the country they were allegedly trying to help. The reviewer suggests that there is not enough focus on motives, just consequences. 

   Notwithstanding my respect for this author, this has been a real slog. At 752 pages of text, it is a bit long. But the primary challenge for me has been the lack of narrative. By telling the story through the experiences of thousands, the book has a chopped-up feel to it. That said, my positive takeaways are led by the highlighting of the institutional brutality of the communists, who ruled with a Stalin-like single-mindedness. Both the people of the north, and the south after 1975, paid a high price for their independence. The tragedy of the south is that it was prosperous and had potential, but there simply never was any leadership. Hastings suggested it could have been like South Korea. Instead, it's still part of a top-down dictatorship. And as for the US, I once again am astounded by our institutional delusion and still befuddled by a democracy's decision to consistently lie to its people.