Part Seven
II-P. General Publications - Laos and Cambodia.
Adams, Nina S.and Alfred W. McCoy, eds. Laos: War and
Revolution. New York: Random House, 1970.
Becker, Elizabeth. When the War was Over: The Voices of
Cambodia's Revolution and its People. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1986.
Branfman, Fred. Voices from the Plain of Jars: Life under an Air
War. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Brown, McAlister and Joseph J. Zasloff. Apprentice
Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930-1985.=20
Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.
Castle, Timothy. At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: United States
Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government, 1955-75. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Chandler, David P. Brother Number One: A Political Biography of
Pol Pot. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics,
War and Revolution since 1945. New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1991. xiii, 396 pp.
Cixous, He'le'ne. The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom
Sihanouk, King of Cambodia. Translated by Juliet Flower
MacCannel, Jidith Pike, and Leslie Goth. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1994. xxvii, 233 pp.
Dommen, Arthur J. Conflict in Laos: The Politics of
Neutralization. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Dommen, Arthur J. Laos: Keystone of Indochina. Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1985.
Drury, Richard S. My Secret War. New York: St. Martin's, 1986.
By a pilot who flew a Skyraider over Laos, late 1960's.
Fall, Bernard. Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 1960-
1961. New York: Doubleday, 1969.
Field, Michael. The Prevailing Wind: Witness in Indo-China.=20
London: Methuen, 1965.
Gettleman, Marvin, Susan Gettleman, Lawrence and Carol Kaplan,
eds. Conflict in Indo-China: A Reader on the Widening War
in Laos and Cambodia. New York: Random House, 1970.
Gunn, Geoffrey C. Rebellion in Laos: Peasant and Politics in a
Colonial Backwater. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990. xv, 224
pp.
Apparently deals mostly with rebellions between 1901
and 1939.
Halpern, Joel M. and William S. Turley, eds. The Training of
Vietnamese Communist Cadres in Laos: The Notes of Do Xuan
Tao, Vietnamese Economics Specialist Assigned ot the Pathet
Lao in Xieng Khouang, Laos, 1968. Christiansburg, VA:
Dalley Book Service, 1990.
Hamilton-Merritt, Jane. Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the
Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992.=20
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Very anti-Communist viewpoint.
Hannah, Norman B. The Key to Failure: Laos and the Vietnam War.
Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1987.
Heckman, Charles W. The Phnom Penh Airlift: Confessions of a Pig
Pilot in the Early 1970s. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990.=20
240 pp.
Kiernan, Ben. "The American Bombardment of Kampuchea, 1969-
1973." Vietnam Generation, vol 1, no. 1 (Winter 1989), pp.
441.
Kiernan, Ben, ed. Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer
Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community.=20
Monograph Series No. 41. New Haven: Yale University
Southeast Asia Studies, 1993. 335 pp.
Mostly about events long after 1975, but contains some
useful discussion of the war years.
Kirk, Donald. Wider War: The Struggle for Cambodia, Thailand,
and Laos. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Langer, Paul F. and Joseph J. Zasloff. North Vietnam and the
Pathet Lao: Partners in the Struggle for Laos. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1970.
Langer, Paul F. The Soviet Union, China and the Pathet Lao:
Analysis and Chronology. Santa Monica, CA: Rand
Corporation, 1972.
Lockhart, Greg. Strike in the South, Clear the North: The
Problem of Kampuchea and the Roots of Vietnamese Strategy
There. Clayton, Australia: Centre of Southeast Asian
Studies, Monash University.
Martin, Marie Alexandrine. Cambodia: A Shattered Society.=20
Translated by Mark W. McLeod. Berkeley: University of
California Press, (1994?).
Osborne, Milton. Politics and Power in Cambodia: The Sihanouk
Years. 1973.
Osborne, Milton. Before Kampuchea: Preludes to Tragedy. 1979.
Osborne, Milton. Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness.=20
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994.
Pratt, John Clark. Laotian Fragments: The Chief Raven's Story.=20
New York: Viking, 1974.
Rantala, Judy A. Laos: A Personal Portrait from the Mid-1970s.=20
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. 256 pp.
Judy Rantala arrived in Laos in 1971 as the wife of a
USAID employee.
Robbins, Christopher. The Ravens. New York: Crown, 1987.
Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the
Destruction of Cambodia. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.
Stuart-Fox, Martin and Mary Kooyman. Historical Dictionary of
Laos. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1992. xlix, 258 pp.
Stieglitz, Perry. In a Little Kingdom. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe,
1990.
Personal account by the the husband of the daughter of
Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma.
Stevens, Richard L. The Trail: A History of the Ho Chi Minh
Trail and the Role of Nature in the War in Viet Nam.=20
Hamden, CT: Garland, 1993.
A useful work, but the author tries too hard to write
in an entertaining fashion.
Stevenson, Charles A. The End of Nowhere: American Policy toward
Laos since 1954. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972.
Stieglitz, Perry. In a Little Kingdom: The Tragedy of Laos,
1960-1980. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990.
Memoir by a US foreign service officer.
Thee, Marek. Notes of a Witness: Laos and the Second Indochina
War. New York: Random House, 1973.
The author was a Polish member of the International
Control Commission in Laos.
Warner, Roger. Back Fire: The CIA's Secret War in Laos and its
Link to the War in Vietnam. Forthcoming: August 1995?
Yang Dao. Hmong at the Turning Point. Minneapolis: WorldBridge
Associates, 1993. xvi, 168 pp.
(French original "Les Hmong du Laos au Developpement",
1975.)
II-Q. General Publications - The Last Stage, 1973-1975
Bouscaren, Anthony T., ed. All Quiet on the Eastern Front: The
Death of South Vietnam. Old Greenwich, CT: Devin-Adair,
1977.
One presumes that the strong anti-Communism of the
editor is reflected in the selections.
Butler, David. The Fall of Saigon. New York: Simon & Schuster,
1985; Dell, 1986.
Caputo, Philip. Means of Escape. HarperCollins, (1991?).
One section of this memoir deals with what Caputo
experienced as a journalist in Saigon during the last three
weeks before the end of the war in 1975.
Dawson, Allan. 55 Days: The Fall of South Vietnam.
Engelmann, Larry. Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the
Fall of Saigon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Haley, P. Edward. Congress and the Fall of South Vietnam and
Cambodia. Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University
Press and Associated University Presses, 1982. 227 pp.
Deals mostly with the year 1975.
Herrington, Stuart. Peace With Honor? An American Reports on
Vietnam, 1973-75. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1983.
Memoir by a military intelligence officer who was in
Vietnam during this last phase of the war, after the US
ceased to have a combat role.
Isaacs, Arnold. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia.=20
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. 559 pp.
Really excellent study of how the war finally ended.
Martin, Earl S. Reaching the Other Side. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1978.
Martin, a Mennonite aid worker, stayed in South Vietnam
through the last months of the war and for a few months
after the Communist victory of 1975.
Miller, Carolyn P. Captured. Chappaqua, NY: Christian Herald
Books, 1977.
Missionaries captured by Communist forces during the
1975 offensive.
Pilger, John. The Last Day. New York: Vintage, 1976.
The author was a correspondent for the London Daily
News
Porter, D Gareth. A Peace Denied: The U.S., Vietnam, and the
Paris Agreements
A rather left-wing view.
Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval. New York: Random House, 1977.=20
590 pp.
Excellent book by a CIA man who was in Saigon during
the last part of the war. He was very careful not to spill
the identities of agents, or other facts that he regarded as
genuine secrets, but he didn't go through the review process
he was legally supposed to go through to let the government
make sure he wasn't spilling any secrets. He believed,
correctly, that if he had gone through the review the
government would have tried to cut out of his book his
statements that the government behaved with disgusting
stupidity and immorality in not making adequate preparations
to get Vietnamese who had worked for the CIA, or who were
for other reasons in danger, out of South Vietnam before the
Communists took over. The U.S. didn't even bother to
destroy a central file listing the names of Vietnamese who
had cooperated with our intelligence operations; the
Communists captured this file intact. The government sued
Snepp for not putting his book through the review, and won.
Taylor, Liz. Dust of Life: Children of the Saigon Streets.=20
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977.
Ms. Taylor went to work in an orphanage in Saigon in
1972, and stayed until December 1975.
Terzani, Tiziano. Giai Phong! The Fall and Liberation of Saigon
Eyewitness account of the Communist takeover in Saigon
by an Italian journalist who stayed when the Americans left.
Todd, Olivier. Cruel April: The Fall of Saigon. Translated by
Stephen Becker. New York: Norton, 1990.
French original Cruel Avril. Paris: Laffont, 1987.
Watts, Ralph S. Saigon: The Final Days. Boise: Pacific Press
Publishing Assoc., 1990. 87 pp.
Watts directed the evacuation of Seventh Day Adventist
personnel.
II-R. General Publications - Special Forces, Special Operations,
and Intelligence
Andrade, Dale. Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the
Vietnam War. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990.
The subtitle added on the dust jacket, "Cover for
Assassination or Effective Counterinsurgency?", describes
the author's view: he seems to feel that if the Phoenix
program was an important and effective means for fighting
the Communist organization during the war, this means that
the accusations of assassinations and atrocities that have
often been made against it are unfounded. Despite this
defensive attitude, he has produced a very useful study of
the program, formally established in 1967 and 1968 (though
previous programs had existed, which were absorbed into
Phoenix), to destroy the Communist infrastructure in the
villages of South Vietnam.
Breckenridge, Scott. CIA and the Cold War: A Memoir. Westport,
CT: Praeger, 1993. 336 pp.
Contains some information about covert operations in
Indochina in the Nixon years, but does not reveal much.
Camper, Frank. L.R.R.P.: The Professional. New York: Dell,
1988.
Chandler, Robert W. War of Ideas: The U.S. Propaganda Campaign
in Vietnam. Boulder,CO: Westview, 1981.
Colby, William and Peter Forbath. Honorable Men: My Life in the
CIA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.
Memoir by William Colby, who became CIA Deputy Chief of
Station in Saigon February 1959, Chief of Station June 1960
to 1962, . . . later Director of Central Intelligence.
Corn, David. Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades.=20
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 509 pp.
Shackley became CIA Chief of Station in Vientiane in
mid 1966, then shifted to Saigon in December 1968, where he
remained until early 1972.
Currey, Cecil B. Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American.=20
Houghton Mifflin.
DeForest, Orrin and David Chanoff. Slow Burn: The Rise and
Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1990.
According to the dust jacket, DeForrest arrived in
Vietnam in 1968, was chief of CIA intelligence activities
for Military Region 3, did very well at his work, and has
very bad things to say about some of the other elements of
CIA performance in Vietnam.
DeSilva, Peer. Sub Rosa: The CIA and the Uses of Intelligence.=20
New York: Times Books, 1978.
Primarily a memoir, despite the title. The author
became CIA station chief for Saigon in December 1963, served
there until injured in a car bombing attack on the US
Embassy March 1965.
Donahue, James C. No Greater Love: A Day with the Mobile
Guerrilla Force in Vietnam. Canton, OH: Daring Books.
About a mission in which the author participated as a
Special Forces medic in 1967.
Generous, Kevin M. Vietnam: The Secret War. New York: Gallery
Books, 1985.
Grant, Zalin. Facing the Phoenix: The CIA and the Political
Defeat of the United States in Vietnam. New York: Norton,
1991.
This book centers on the career of Tran Ngoc Chau, who
according to Grant was highly effective in political warfare
against the Communists, but who was in the end rejected by
the Americans.
Hamblen, Donald M. with B. H. Norton. One Tough Marine: The
Autobiography of First Sergeant Donald M. Hamblen, USMC.=20
New York: Ballantine, 1993. 337 pp.
Hamblen lost a leg in an accident in 1962. He returned
to duty with Force Recon, then went to Vietnam assigned to
SOG (as advisor to a team of RVN Marines based at Camp Black
Rock a.k.a. My Khe). He was with SOG approximately May 1965
to November 1967.
Intelligence and National Security Serial, published by Cass, in
the United Kingdom.
International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.
Published in the United States; authors are reputedly
more often current or former members of the intelligence
community than scholars.
Jackson, Wayne G. 5-volume CIA internal history (title unknown)
of Allen Dulles' tenure as DCI, February 1953 to November
1961, written 1973, declassified June 1994. Jackson had
been a special assistant to Dulles during the Eisenhower
administration.
Jacques, Sergeant Major Maurice A. and Major Bruce H. Norton.=20
Sergeant Major, U.S. Marines. New York: Ivy, 1995. xiii,
464 pp.
A substantial portion of the book deals with Jacques'
three tours in Vietnam, mostly with First Force Recon,
beginning 1965 and ending January 1970.
Lanning, Michael Lee. Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam. New
York: Ivy Books, 1988.
Lansdale, Edward G. In the Midst of Wars: An American's Mission
to Southeast Asia. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Memoir by a senior CIA man who became involved in
Vietnam late in the French war against the Viet Minh, and
was then heavily involved in the early consolidation of Ngo
Dinh Diem in power. This book only goes up to about 1956,
and its accuracy is occasionally dubious.
Leary, William. Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA
Covert Operations in Asia. University of Alabama Press,
1986.
McCoy, Alfred W. with Cathleen Read and Leonard P. Adams II. The
Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. New York: Harper &
Row, 1972.
McGarvey, Patrick. CIA: The Myth and the Madness. New York:
Saturday Review Press, 1972. 240 pp.
McGarvey had worked as a CIA analyst on Vietnam, and
had quit, apparently in disgust. The lack either of an
index or of chronological organization prevents this from
being used as a reference work.
McGehee, Ralph. Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA. New
York: Sheridan Square Publications, 1983.
Memoir by a CIA officer who served both in Thailand and
in South Vietnam during the 1960's. Very hostile to the
CIA.
Miller, Franklin D. with Elwood N.C. Kureth. Reflections of a
Warrior. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1991.
Miller, a Medal of Honor winner, was apparently very
enthusiastic about combat and killing. He served six tours
in Indochina, mostly with MACV-SOG, between 1966 and 1972.
Norton, Bruce H. Force Recon Diary, 1969. New York: Ivy Books,
1991.
Norton was a Navy hospital corpsman who somehow became
the leader of a team of the Marine Corps 3d Force Recon
Company.
Norton, Bruce H. Force Recon Diary, 1970. New York: Ivy Books,
1992.
Sequel to the above, covering Norton's service in the
1st Force Recon Company.
Norton, Bruce H. Force Recon Diary, 1969-1970. Military Book
Club edition. New York: Ivy Books, 1992.
The two volumes above combined into one.
Powers, Thomas. The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and
the CIA.
Prados, John. "The Flight of the Phoenix." Veteran, 8:8 (August
1968), pp. 13-16, 28.
Reske, Charles F., ed. MAC-V-SOG Command History, Annexes A, N &
M (1964-1966). Sharon Center, OH: Alpha Press, 1992. 174
pp.
Reske, Charles F., ed. MAC-V-SOG Command History, Annex B, 1971-
1972. 2 vols. Sharon Center, OH: Alpha Press, 1990. 756
pp.
Robbins, Christopher. Air America. New York: Putnam, 1979;
Avon, 1985
History of the largest of the various airline companies
that have been controlled by the CIA and that played a key
role in the Indochina wars.
Schemmer, Benjamin F. The Raid. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
The raid by U.S. forces on Son Tay prison near Hanoi,
where U.S. prisoners of war were believed to be being held.
Failed because the prisoners had all been moved elsewhere.
Secord, Richard with Jay Wurts. Honored and Betrayed. New York:
Wiley, 1992.
Contains an interesting account of Secord's service as
a pilot in South Vietnam circa 1962; also later involvement
in Laos.
Singlaub, Major General John K. with Malcolm McConnell.=20
Hazardous Duty: An American Soldier in the Twentieth
Century. New York: Summit Books, 1991.
Singlaub arrived in Vietnam in April 1966, as commander
of MACV-SOG, the organization responsible for covert
operations throughout Indochina.
Smith, Eric McAllister. Not by the Book: A Combat Intelligence
Officer in Vietnam. New York: Ivy Books, 1993. 214 pp.
Smith arrived in Vietnam as a military intelligence
lieutenant with some training in the Vietnamese language,
July 1968, assigned to the 23 Infantry (Americal) Division.
Smith, Felix. Flying for Chiang and Chennault: Adventures of a
China Pilot. McLean, VA: Brassey's, forthcoming 1995.
Apparently a CAT pilot during the Vietnam era; may or
may not have had a Vietnam involvement.=20
Smith, Joseph B. Portrait of a Cold Warrior. Putnam, 1976;
Ballantine, 1981.
Memoir, only part of it dealing with Indochina, by a
long-term CIA officer.
Smith, Myron J., ed. The Secret Wars: A Guide to Sources in
English. Volume II, Intelligence, Propaganda and
Psychological Warfare, Covert Operations, 1945-1980. =20
ABC-Clio, 1981
Stanton, Shelby L. Special Forces at War: An Illustrated
History, Southeast Asia 1957-1975. Charlottesville, VA:
Howell Press, 1990.
Tourison, Sedgwick D. Jr. Talking with Victor Charlie: An
Interrogator's Story. New York: Ivy Books (Ballantine),
1991.
Memoir by a US Army interrogator who arrived in Vietnam
in mid 1965, one of the few Americans who really knew the
Vietnamese language. Seems to be quite an important book.
Valentine, Douglas. The Phoenix Program. New York: Morrow,
1990.
Based to a large extent on interviews with
participants, this study is more critical of the Phoenix
Program than Andrade's book is. Overly sensationalized,
especially in its later chapters, but still quite useful.
Vandenbroucke, Lucien S. Perilous Options: Special Operations as
an Instrument of U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993. 272 pp.
Considers four cases, two of which are the Son Tay
Prison raid and the Mayaguez operation of 1975. The author
works for the Department of State.
II-R-1. General Publications - Special Forces, Special
Operations, and Intelligence - Army Special Forces.
Beckwith, Col. Charlie A. and Ronald Knox. Delta Force. New
York: Dell, 1985.
A large portion of this book deals with Beckwith's
service in the Special Forces in Vietnam.
Benavidez, Roy P. and Oscar Griffin. The Three Wars of Roy
Benavidez. Corona?, 1986;New York: Pocket Books, 1988.
Memoir by a Special Forces Sergeant who won the
Congressional Medal of Honor for a combat action in Cambodia
in 1968. Due to the pretense that no U.S. personnel engaged
in ground combat in Cambodia in 1968, the citation for his
medal shifted the location across the border into South
Vietnam.
Benavidez, Roy P. with John R. Craig. Medal of Honor: A Vietnam
Warrior's Story. McLean, VA: Brassey's, 1995(?).
Bendell, Don. The B-52 Overture: The North Vietnamese Assault on
Special Forces - Camp A-242, Dak Pek. New York: Dell, 1992.=20
160 pp.
PAVN attack on Special Forces Camp A-242, 1969-1970.
Bendell, Don. Valley of Tears: Assault into Plei Trap. New
York: Dell, 1993. 182 pp.
Montagnard and/or LLDB strike force under Special
Forces leadership, attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On the
basis of a brief skim, I am dubious about this one.
Bendell, Don. Snake-Eater: Characters in and Stories about the
U.S. Army Special Forces in the Vietnam War. New York:
Dell, 1994. 166 pp.
Billac, Pete. The Last Medal of Honor. Swan, 1992(?).
Biography of Roy Benavidez.
Burruss, Ltc. L.H. ("Bucky"). Mike Force. Pocket Books.
The author served two years with a Special Forces
Mobile Strike Force.
Craig, William T. Lifer! From Infantry to Special Forces. New
York: Ivy Books, 1994. 310 pp.
Title changed just before publication from the planned
Snake Eater!~ and/or `Snake Eaters!. Craig, a veteran of
the Korean War, joined the Special Forces late in the 1950s,
and served in Laos (beginning late 1960) and Vietnam
(beginning September 1962. He didn't much like officers,
but eventually rose to Command Sergeant Major. This book
carries his life up to 1964.
Donlon, Capt. Roger H. C., as told to Warren Rogers. Outpost of
Freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965; Avon, 1966.
A Green Beret who won the Congressional Medal of Honor
for an action in July 1964.
Duncan, Donald. The New Legions. New York: Random House, 1967.
An anti-war view by a former Special Forces sergeant.
Foley, Ltc. Dennis. Special Men: A LRP's Recollections. New
York: Ivy, 1994. 340 pp.
Foley joined the Army as an enlisted man, went to OCS,
and began his Vietnam service at the end of 1965, assigned
to 101st Airborne Brigade under David Hackworth. He later
joined Special Forces.
Garner, Sergeant Major Joe R., with Avrum M. Fine. Code Name:
Copperhead: My True-Life Exploits as a Special Forces
Soldier. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Garner served with White Star in Laos, and later with
SOG in Vietnam.
Halberstadt, Hans. War Stories of the Green Berets. 5 vols. The
Green Beret Magazine. Houston: Radix Press, 1989-1990(?).
Reprints in book form of "The Green Beret", a monthly
magazine published by the 5th Special Forces Group
(Airborne), Vietnam. 5 vols., one per year, 1966-1970.=20
Morris, Jim. War Story. New York: Dell, 1985.
Memoirs of a man who served three tours with the
Special Forces in Vietnam, mainly working with Montagnard
tribes in the Highlands.
Moore, Robin and Henry Rothblatt. Court-Martial. Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1971.
The trial of Colonel Robert Rheault (commander of the
5th Special Forces Group) and some of his subordinates,
accused of having murdered a Vietnamese they believed to be
a double agent. Rothblatt was one of the attorneys for the
defense.
Sasser, Charles W. Always a Warrior: The Memoir of a Six-War
Soldier. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. 306 pp.
Sasser has been a Special Forces soldier, a journalist,
and a novelist. The books is written episodically, with few
dates.
Shackleton, Col. Ronald. Village Defense: Initial Special Forces
Operations in Viet Nam. Arvada, CO: Phoenix Press, 1975.=20
149 pp.
Written in 1964, based mostly on operations of January
to August 1962.
Simpson, Charles M., III. Inside the Green Berets. Novato, CA:
Presidio, 1983; Berkley, 1984.
A short history of the U.S. Army Special Forces,
popularly known as the Green Berets.
Stanton, Shelby L. Green Berets at War: US Army Special Forces
in Southeast Asia 1956-1975. Novato, CA: Presidio Press,
1985; New York: Dell, 1991.
II-R-2. General Publications - Special Forces, Special
Operations, and Intelligence - Navy SEALs.
Block, Mickey and William Kimball. Before the Dawn. Canton, OH:
Daring Books.
Said to deal with Block's service as a Navy commando
(SEAL?) and his postwar readjustment.
Bosiljevac, T.J. SEALs: UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam. New
York: Ivy Books, 1990.
Fawcett, Bill. Hunters and Shooters: An Oral History of the U.S.
Navy SEALs in Vietnam. Forthcoming, 1995.
Marcinko, Richard with John Weisman. Rogue Warrior. New York:
Pocket Books, 1992.
Parts of this book cover Marcinko's service as a SEAL
officer in the Mekong Delta (roughly the first halves of
1967 and 1968) and as US Naval Attache in Phnom Penh, 1973-
74, working to keep the Mekong River open.
Walsh, Lt. Cmdr. Michael J. and Greg Walker. SEAL!. New York:
Pocket Books, 1995. 292 pp.
(Copyright is 1994, but there is no indication of an
actual 1994 hardcover.) Walsh served multiple tours in
Vietnam starting in Mekong Delta late 1968.
Watson, Chief James and Kevin Dockery. Point Man: Inside the
Toughest and Most Deadly Unit in Vietnam by a Founding
Member of Elite Navy SEALs. New York: Morrow, 1993.
Watson served three tours in Vietnam, beginning in
1967.
Young, Darryl. The Element of Surprise: Navy SEALs in Vietnam.
New York: Ivy Books, 1990.
The author served with a SEAL unit in the Mekong Delta
in 1970.
II-R-3. General Publications - Special Forces, Special
Operations, and Intelligence - The Order of Battle Dispute
and the Westmoreland Lawsuit.
Adams, Sam. "Vietnam Cover-up: Playing War with Numbers".
Harper's, May 1975.
Charges by a former CIA analyst that U.S. intelligence,
especially MACV intelligence, deliberately underestimated
enemy strength in Vietnam in order to maintain optimism
about the way the war was going.
Adams, Sam, introduction by Col. David Hackworth. War of
Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, VT:
Steerforth Press, 1994. 251 pp.
This extremely valuable book is seriously incomplete.=20
The author died in 1988, and his widow wisely decided to
publish the manuscript as he had left it, rather than allow
someone else to write new material to fill in the gaps.
"The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception" is a documentary
broadcast by CBS on January 23, 1982. It is, in essence, the
television presentation of Samuel Adams' charges about distortion
of military intelligence reporting. It restates Adams' old
charges in regard to the dropping of certain categories from the
official order-of-battle figures, and adds new charges (based on
research Adams did after writing his 1975 article) that MACV
figures also underestimated the rate of NVA infiltration into
South Vietnam for about five months before the Tet Offensive.
In establishing the sheer fact that intelligence estimates
were deliberately distorted, this program does pretty well. It
presents a great deal of convincing testimony from military
intelligence officers who said that pressure from their superiors
to hold down the estimates of enemy strength had made them
compile official estimates that they themselves did not believe
to be accurate. However, the program does less well in analyzing
the implications and consequences of the problem.
First, it assumes far too readily that if crucial information
was omitted from MACV official reports, then the White House was
being kept in ignorance. CBS allowed its viewers to believe (once
almost came out and told them outright) that the President was
ignorant of matters that in fact the President seems to have
known about.
"The Uncounted Enemy" did not openly deny General
Westmoreland's claim that the Tet Offensive had been in military
terms an American victory, but it discussed that claim in a
fashion designed to raise doubts. This was not proper; there had
been good reason to doubt Westmoreland's claim at the time he
made it, in 1968, but by 1981, when this documentary was made,
the fact that Tet really had been an American military victory
had become clear.
Finally, there have been questions about the fairness of the
program.Its makers, presumably noticing the obvious logic that a
successful conspiracy to distort intelligence reporting implies
both a lot of conspirators who will presumably attempt to conceal
what they have done, and a lot of victims who were successfully
persuaded that the reports they were getting were honest, tended
to discount in advance those witnesses who said there had been no
distortion of intelligence reporting. CBS did not interview all
those it should have interviewed, and it did not give much air
time to those who said there had been no distortion of
intelligence reporting. Exercising this sort of judgment is
generally considered a violation of proper journalistic
procedure. On the other hand, the evidence that has emerged since
the program was broadcast indicates that CBS's judgment was good.
The people who were given the most air time in the CBS program
were in fact the ones who were describing the events accurately.
Adler, Renata. Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al.;
Sharon v. Time.
From the brief glance I have taken at this book, Ms.
Adler seems to be grotesquely biased, and to lack an
understanding of even the most elementary issues involved
in the Westmoreland/CBS trial.
Brewin, Bob and Sydney Shaw. Vietnam on Trial: Westmoreland vs.
CBS. New York: Atheneum, 1987. 414pp.
The bulk of this book is a journalistic account of the
Westmoreland/CBS dispute, pretty competently done except for
a tendency simply to present the evidence, without enough
analysis. (There are, however, surprising inaccuracies in
regard to the "Viet Cong Infrastructure".) About 80 pages
are devoted to interesting information about the war that
came out in the trial but had little connection with the
issues in the trial, especially dealing with the Ho Chi Minh
Trail and US efforts to block it, and with McNamara's
pessimism about the war.
Benjamin, Burton. Fair Play: CBS, General Westmoreland, and How
a Television Documentary Went Wrong. New York: Harper &
Row, 1988.
This account is by the man CBS assigned to handle its
internal investigation of the documentary "The Uncounted
Enemy". I have not seen it, but my impression is that it is
concerned more with the question of whether the documentary
followed proper journalistic procedures that with whether it
was accurate.
Boies, David et. al. Memorandum in Support of Defendant CBS's
Motion to Dismiss and for Summary Judgment. 3 vols.=20
Submitted May 23, 1984, to the United States District Court,
Southern District of New York, in the case of General
William C. Westmoreland against CBS Inc., et. al., 82 Civ.
7913 (PNL).
This memorandum in three bound volumes contains a great
deal of information, and full texts of sworn affadavits from
various witnesses, in regard to the charge by CBS that US
military intelligence in Vietnam deliberately falsified
figures on enemy troops strength, especially in 1967.
Clurman, Richard M. Beyond Malice: The Media's Years of
Reckoning. rev. ed. New York: NAL, 1990.
Cubbage, Thomas L. III. "Westmoreland vs. CBS: Was Intelligence
Corrupted by Policy Demands?" in Michael I. Handel, ed.=20
Leaders and Intelligence. London: Frank Cass, 1989, pp. 118-
180.
An anti-CBS view by a former military intelligence
officer.
Cubbage, Thomas L. III. Review of The Tet Offensive:
Intelligence Failure in War, by James J. Wirtz. In Conflict
Quarterly, Summer 1993.
The review, not very favorable, presents Cubbage's
version of the Hanoi policymaking that produced the
offensive; Cubbage describes this as Giap's plan.
Jones, Bruce. War without Windows. New York: Vanguard, 1987.
By a junior officer who worked in military intelligence
in Saigon around 1967.
Kowet, Don. A Matter of Honor. New York: Macmillan, 1984.=20
317pp.
This is a full-length attack on the CBS documentary
"The Uncounted Enemy." Kowet's lack of knowledge of the
issues dealt with in the documentary, when added to his
biases, make the book pretty worthless.
Rosenberg, Norman L. Protecting the Best Men: An Interpretive
History of the Law of Libel. Chapel Hill: North Carolina
Press, 1986.
Roth, M. Patricia. The Juror and the General. New York: William
Morrow, 1986.
By one of the jurors at the trial of Westmoreland v.
CBS, et. al
Shields, Frederick L. Preventable Disasters: Why Governments
Fail. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991. xi, 204 pp.
Analyses three "disasters", one of which is the Tet
Offensive.
Smolla, Rodney A. Suing the Press. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986.
Wirtz, James J. The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
This book contains some useful information, but
basically it is a whitewash of the intelligence failure.
Wirtz, James J. "Deception and the Tet Offensive." Journal of
Strategic Studies, 13 (June 1990), pp. 82-98.
Wirtz, James J. "Intelligence to Please? The Order of Battle
Controversy During the Vietnam War." Political Science
Quarterly, 106 (Summer 1991), pp. 239-63.
Young, Stephen B. "Westmoreland v. CBS: The Law of War and the
Order of Battle Controversy." Parameters, 21 (Winter 1991-
92), pp. 74-94.
II-S. General Publications - Fictional Accounts.
Some novels give pretty informative accounts of the war.
Among the interesting ones are:
Ahn Junghyo. White Badge: A Novel of Korea. Soho Press, 1989.
This novel about the experiences of Korean soldiers
fighting in Vietnam as allies of the Americans was
originally written in Korean, and was translated into
English by the author.
Bao Ninh. The Sorrow of War. London: Martin Secker & Warburg,
1993; New York: Pantheon.
Vietnamese original Hanoi, 1991. By a veteran of the
war.
Buckley, William. Tucker's Last Stand. New York: Random House,
1990.
A right-wing fantasy version of the events of 1964,
with the Tonkin Gulf incidents turned into a conspiracy
(President Johnson has the CIA deliberately fake an attack
on the Maddox and Turner Joy on the night of August 4), and
virtually every aspect of the background - the extent of
North Vietnamese support for the war in the South and of
Soviet support for North Vietnam, the nature of OPLAN 34-A,
the mission of the destroyers in the Gulf, the very
geography of the Ho Chi Minh Trailpresented with massive
inaccuracy.
Bunting, Josiah. The Lionheads
Buonanno, C. Beyond the Flag. Tower Books, 1981.
The author was in CAP in Quang Tri, 1969.
Butler, Robert Olen. The Alleys of Eden. Ballantine, 1983.
Danziger, Jeff. Rising Like the Tucson. New York: Doubleday,
(1991?).
Supposed to be quite good and quite funny.
Del Vecchio, John. The 13th Valley. New York: Bantam, 1982.
About an operation in the mountains west of Hue in
1970. Good.
Duong Thu Huong. Paradise of the Blind. New York: Morrow, 1993;
Penguin, 1994.
This novel was originally published in Vietnam, where
the author is a dissident.
Duong Thu Huong. Novel Without a Name. New York: Morrow.
Protagonist is a PAVN officer; main action set in 1974.
Greene, Graham. The Quiet American.
Classic account of a CIA man whose naive faith that he
can find the solution to Vietnamese problems leads to
disaster; setting approximately 1953.
Halberstam, David. One Very Hot Day.
About a US advisor with an ARVN infantry unit, about
1964.
Hasford, Gustav. The Short-timers. New York: Harper & Row,
1979.
This was the inspiration for the movie "Full Metal
Jacket". The author served in the Marines, approximately
1967.
Hasford, Gustav. The Phantom Blooper. New York: Bantam, 1990.
A sequel to The Short-timers.
Heinemann, Larry. Close Quarters. New York: Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1977.
Kaiko, Takeshi. Into a Black Sun. Translated by Cecilia Segawa
Seigle. New York & Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Written by a Japanese who had apparently been a
correspondent in Vietnam.
McLeod, Jesse T. Crew Chief. New York: Daring Books, 1988?:
Dell, 1990.
By a man who was in fact a crew chief on a helicopter.
Cover gives a misleading impression this may be a memoir
rather than a novel.
Pham Van Ky. Blood Brothers.
A French-educated Vietnamese tries to decide in 1947
whether to join the Viet Minh.
Rivers, Gayle (pseud.) and James Hudson. The Five Fingers.
The actual plot (about an elite unit sent by the U.S.
government through Laos and North Vietnam to China on a
mission to kill a bunch of top North Vietnamese and Chinese
officials) is pretty silly. However, the book shows a good
understanding of the way elite units operated behind enemy
lines, good enough to make the claim by "Rivers" that he had
served in such a unit seem plausible.=20
Roth, Robert. Sand in the Wind. New York: Pinnacle, 1973.
Marines, from 1967 to the fighting in Hue during Tet
1968.
Wentz, Gene and B. Abell Jurus. Men in Green Faces. New York:
St. Martin's, (1993?)
Wentz served as a SEAL in Vietnam; the novel is partly
based on his memories.
Willson, David A. REMF Diary. Seattle: Black Heron Press.
Supposed to be pretty good; story of an Army clerk in
Saigon, 1966-67.
Willson, David A. The REMF Returns. Seattle: Black Heron Press.
II-T. General Publications - Semi-Fictional Accounts.
A lot of guys have been writing books that claim to be true
accounts, but with some or all of the names changed.
Anderson, William. Bat-21. New York: Bantam, 1983. 222 pp.
Story of the efforts, finally successful, to rescue
USAF Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton after he was shot down behind
enemy lines. Mostly fact, I think; fictionalized in a few
ways.
Donovan, David (psued). Once a Warrior King: Memories of an
Officer in Vietnam. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985.
By an army lieutenant who commanded a "Mobile Advisory
Team" in the Mekong Delta, 1969-70.
Holley, Charles. Aeroscouts. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.
Fictionalized account - perhaps very fictionalized- of
a helicopter pilot who served in II Corps beginning in 1968.
Kettwig, John. And a Hard Rain Fell.
An army private who arrived in Vietnam in 1967.
Lang, Daniel. Casualties of War. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.
The story, with all names changed, of a US soldier (not
the author) who testified at court-martial against four of
his buddies who had raped and murdered a Vietnamese woman in
November 1966. I am told that all four defendants were
convicted, and that the trial records are available at Clerk
of Courts, U.S. Army Judiciary, Falls Church, VA.
Marvicsin, Dennis J. and Jerrold A Greenfield. Maverick: The
Personal War of a Vietnam Cobra Pilot.
Marvicsin flew first Huey slicks, later Cobra
helicopter gunships in Vietnam. He claims that everything
in the book is true, but at the same time he notes that he
has not only changed names, but also altered chronology to
some extent.
Mason, Robert. Chickenhawk. New York: Viking, 1983. 339 pp.
A very good account by a helicopter pilot who went to
Vietnam with the First Cavalry in 1965.
Parks, David. GI Diary. Washington, DC: Howard University
Press, 1984.
Parks arrived in Vietnam January 1967. Personal names,
unit designations, and some place names have been altered.
Reeves, James R. Mekong. New York: Ballantine, 1984. 309 pp.
Fictionalized version of the experiences of James C.
Taylor, who was in a SEAL unit (Sea-Air-Land--elite troops
administratively under the U.S. Navy) in the Mekong Delta
late in the war. Pretty good.
Shepard, Elaine. The Doom Pussy. Trident Press, 1967.
Air operations over North Vietnam. Seriously
fictionalized - more than just changing names or even
creating composite personalities.
Spencer, Ernest. Welcome to Vietnam, Macho Man: Reflection of a
Khe Sanh Vet. Corps Press, 1987; Bantam.
Significantly fictionalized.
Van Buskirk, Robert. Tailwind.
This is supposed to be a true account by a member of
the U.S. Army Special Forces about an operation he went on
in Laos, with just the names changed, but it does not seem
very realistic.
II-U. General Publications - Documentary Films.
Hearts and Minds. Touchstone/Warner Brothers, 1974.
Quite good.
In the Year of the Pig. Turin Films Corp., 1968.
Pretty good, but with a bit of left-wing bias.
Time of the Locust.
Short; not a full feature-length film.
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