WITHOUT HONOR: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia

by Arnold R. Isaacs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1983

In Vietnam, Reagan has felt compelled to insist, ""ours was, in truth, a noble cause."" Isaacs, who covered the war for the Baltimore Sun, sees it differently. His time span is relatively brief (compared with Karnow's, below): the Vietnamese situation in 1972; the Paris accords of January 1973; the ensuing period of American withdrawal--climaxed by the fall of Saigon in 1975. (Separate chapters deal with Cambodia and Laos, the ""pawns"" of the Vietnam War). Overall, his conclusion is not unusual--though it reverses some ""revisionist"" attempts to show that a national lack-of-will brought defeat in Vietnam. Instead, Isaacs argues, the defeat and the ensuing havoc resulted from: America's failure to understand its enemy and allies, lndochinese history and culture; a mistaken belief in the power of sheer milltary force; and political and bureaucratic barriers to the reversal of failed policies. For Isaacs, Kissinger's repeated reference to North Vietnamese negotiators as ""insolent"" neatly sums up what was wrong with the American perspective on Vietnam. But Kissinger and Nixon are the particular villains here on only one score: the destruction of Cambodia, and the human devastation subsequently wreaked by the Khmer Rouge. Otherwise, says Isaacs, any administration would have taken a similar approach: Nixon and Kissinger were confronted with a failure, and if they blamed the protesters, shut out opposing views, sought to punish their victorious foes, and refused to take the North Vietnamese at their word, then they only acted out ingrained Washington attitudes in a heightened form. Isaacs' fine, vivid detail complements the broad strokes of his interpretation. Looking out his Saigon hotel window in 1974 (when South Vietnam was still supposedly in good shape), he describes the newspaper vendor across the street who had lost his customers--one more victim of an economic collapse caused by falling rice prices in 1972, the oil price rise of 1973, and the withdrawal of American forces, together with over $300 million they spent on everything from taxis to prostitutes. Or, he describes a decimated village where government troops make forays looking for draft dodgers, a problem that accompanied not only the growing casualties but also the quick doubling of the cost of living. These scenes, together with others (government officers abandoning their troops, US representatives giving misleading assurances of aid), create a big picture in a relatively narrow frame. The latest in a notable line of Vietnam-journalist reassessments.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1983

ISBN: 0801861071

Page Count: -

Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION