Max Hastings - Vietnam

William Collins

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London SE1 9GF

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

Copyright © Max Hastings 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover photograph © AP Photo/Art Greenspoon

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008132989

Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008133009

Version: 2019-09-02

For my dear friend Rick Atkinson, who chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of American armies with an elegance, penetration and human sympathy that his fellow-historians strive to match.

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

Epigraph

Introduction

Note on Styles Adopted in the Text

Glossary

1 Beauty and Many Beasts

1 CLINGING TO AN EMPIRE

2 THE VIETMINH MARCH

2 The ‘Dirty War’

1 STEAMROLLER TYPES

2 WASHINGTON PICKS UP THE TAB

3 PEASANTS

3 The Fortress That Never Was

1 WAITING FOR GIAP

2 DISASTER BECKONS

4 Bloody Footprints

1 QUIT – OR BOMB?

2 ‘A TRIUMPH OF THE WILL’

3 GENEVA

5 The Twin Tyrannies

1 ‘A REGIME OF TERROR’

2 ‘THE ONLY BOY WE GOT’

3 BOOM TIME

4 A RECALL TO ARMS

6 Some of the Way With JFK

1 ‘THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE THEIR COUNTRY IF …’

2 McNAMARA’S MONARCHY

3 LE DUAN RAISES HIS STAKE

7 1963: Coffins for Two Presidents

1 SMALL BATTLE, BIG STORY: AP BAC

2 THE BUDDHISTS REVOLT

3 KILLING TIME

8 The Maze

1 ‘ENOUGH WAR FOR EVERYBODY’

2 DODGING DECISIONS

9 Into the Gulf

1 LIES

2 HAWKS ASCENDANT

10 ‘We Are Puzzled About How to Proceed’

1 DOWN THE TRAIL

2 COMMITTAL

11 The Escalator

1 ‘BOTTOM OF THE BARREL’

2 NEW PEOPLE, NEW WAR

12 ‘Trying to Grab Smoke’

1 WARRIORS AND WATER-SKIERS

2 UNFRIENDLY FIRE

3 TRAPS AND TRAIL DUST

13 Graft and Peppermint Oil

1 STEALING

2 RULING

3 GURUS

14 Rolling Thunder

1 STONE AGE, MISSILE AGE

2 ‘UP NORTH’

15 Taking the Pain

1 BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES

2 FRIENDS

16 Waist-Deep in the Big Muddy

1 PEACENIKS

2 WARNIKS

3 FIELDCRAFT

4 GUNS

17 Our Guys, Their Guys: the Vietnamese War

1 SONG QUA NGAY – ‘LET’S JUST GET THROUGH THE DAY’

2 FIGHTERS

3 SAIGON SOLDIERS

18 Tet

1 PRELUDE

2 FUGUE

3 A SYMBOLIC HUMILIATION

19 The Giant Reels

1 FIGHTING BACK

2 SURRENDER OF A PRESIDENT

20 Continuous Replay

1 DYING

2 TALKING

21 Nixon’s Inheritance

1 A CRUMBLING ARMY

2 AUSSIES AND KIWIS

3 GODS

4 VIETNAMISATION

22 Losing by Instalments

1 THE FISHHOOK AND THE PARROT’S BEAK

2 COUNTER-TERROR

3 LAM SON 719

23 Collateral Damage

1 MARY ANN

2 THE ‘GOAT’

3 ‘LET’S GO HOME’

24 The Biggest Battle

1 LE DUAN FORCES THE PACE

2 THE STORM BREAKS

3 AN EMPTY VICTORY

25 Big Ugly Fat Fellers

1 ‘IT WILL ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, WIPE OUT McGOVERN’

2 ‘WE’LL BOMB THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF THEM’

26 A Kiss Before Dying

1 THE PRISONER

2 ‘PEACE’

3 WAR OF THE FLAGS

27 The Last Act

1 INVASION

2 ‘AH, MY COUNTRY, MY POOR COUNTRY’

28 Afterwards

1 VENGEANCE

2 THE AUDIT OF WAR

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Notes and References

Bibliography

Index

Also by Max Hastings

About the Publisher

Tonkin, 1896: entrance to the pagoda of the Great Buddha. (© BnF, département des Cartes et Plans, Société de géographie, Sg XCm 707)

Tonkin, 1908: French officers with the heads of Vietnamese suspected of poisoning French troops. (Apic/Getty Images)

1945: victims of the catastrophic famine that swept northern Vietnam. (Special Collections & University Archives Department, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida)

OSS officers with Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh.

French troops with a Vietminh suspect. (Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images)

French troops bring in a casualty. (©Daniel Camus/ECPAD/Défense)

Dienbienphu, November 1953. (Keystone/Staff)

Giap and Ho. (Collection Jean-Claude LABBE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Cogny, de Castries and Navarre. (Ullstein bild Dtl./Getty Images)

French officers escort a Vietminh unit into their lines following the July 1954 ceasefire. (PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Lodge and Diem. (Larry Burrows/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Nguyen Thuy Nga and Le Duan.

Mao Zedong and Le Duc Tho. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Lou Conein.

Gen. Max Taylor and Gen. Paul Harkins. (Larry Burrows/Getty Images)

The Ho Chi Minh Trail. (© Le Minh Truong/Another Vietnam)

Hueys. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Special forces camp at Plei Me under Vietcong assault in 1965. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Walt Boomer. (Courtesy of Walter Boomer)

Tim O’Brien. (Courtesy of Tim O’Brien)

John Paul Vann and Doug Ramsey. (Courtesy of Doug Ramsey)

Bob Kerrey.

Leon Gouré. (State Archives of Florida)

Australian private Tom Blackhurst. (© Australian War Memorial C36943)

Mike Eiland. (Courtesy of Mike Eiland)

Classic combat image by Don McCullin. (© Don McCullin)

Doan Phuong Hai.

Bao Ninh. (© 1993 The Sorrow of War)

Nguyen Cong Luan.

Truong Nhu Tang.

1st Air Cav at An Thi. (AP/Shutterstock)

Maxwell Taylor and William Westmoreland. (Silverwell Films)

Duong Van Mai. (Courtesy of Duong Van Mai Elliott)

Nguyen Thi Chinh. (Courtesy of Kieu Chinh)

Vietcong doctor Dang Thuy Tram. (Courtesy of Dang Thuy Tram)

Body count. (Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Dan Hickman. (Courtesy of Dan Hickman)

Jeff Anthony. (Courtesy of Jeff Anthony)

Bob Nelson. (Courtesy of Bob Nelson)

David Rogers. (Courtesy of David Rogers)

A US Marine carries an injured woman to safety. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Hue 1968: Marine officer Myron Harrington with British photographer Don McCullin. (Nik Wheeler/Corbis via Getty Images)