Until The Last Man Comes Home, by Michael J. Allen

Until The Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs and the Unending Vietnam War, by Michael J. Allen
University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2009
305 pages plus notes, Bibliography and Index. A few photos scattered throughout book
Library: 959.70437 ALL

Description
Fewer Americans were captured or missing during the Vietnam War than in any previous major military conflict in US history. Yet despite their small numbers, American POWs inspired an outpouring of concern that slowly eroded support for the war, while the ceaseless search for MIAs perpetuated American doubts and divisions into the 21st century. Bringing exhaustive archival research to the one arena where Americans consistently struggled over the causes and consequences of their nation's defeat in Vietnam - the recovery of lost warriors - Michael J. Allen reveals how wartime loss transformed US politics well before, and long after, the war's official end.

Throughout the war's last years and in the decades since, Allen argues, the effort to recover lost warriors was as much a means to establish responsibility for their loss as it was a search for answers about their fate. Though millions of Americans, and a surprising number of Vietnamese, took part in that effort, POW and MIA families dominated it. Insisting that the war was not over until "the last man comes home," this small, determined group turned the unprecedented accounting effort against those they blamed for their suffering.

Allen demonstrates that POW/MIA activism prolonged the hostility between the United States and Vietnam even as the search for the missing became the basis for closer ties between the two countries in the 1990s. Equally important, he explains, POW/MIA families disdain for the antiwar left and contempt for federal authority fueled the conservative ascendancy after 1968 even as it made it difficult for conservative leaders to resurrect prewar visions of national unity or to wield military power with the ease of an earlier era. Mixing political, cultural, and diplomatic history, Until the Last Man Comes Home presents the full and lasting impact of the Vietnam War in ways that are both familiar and surprising.

Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction. The Politics of Loss
1. Go Public: The Construction of Loss.
2. For Us the War Still Goes On: The Limits of Homecoming
3. As it has in the Pas: A Short History of Oblivion
4. Fullest Possible Accounting: The Persistence of the Past
5. The Wilderness Years: Life after Death
6. Highest National Priority: Resurrection and Retribution
7. Not to Close the Door, But to Open It: The Ambiguity of Recovery
Conclusion: This Thing Has Consumed American Politics for Years
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Photos
--1967 North Vietnamese postage stamp commemorating capture of US POWs (Nguyen Thi Kim Lai escorting sergeant William Robinson)
--President Nixon with wives and mothers of US POWs: Carole Hanson, Louise Mulligan, Sybil Stockdale, Andrea Rander (black), Mary Mearns. White House aide Alexander Butterfield
--VFW magazine cover, "I hope those withdrawal plans include us" May 1971
--Life Sept 29, 1972 cover of POW wife Valerie Kushner
--Three unidentified women waiting for released POWs at Camp Pendleton
--Arthur Burer and Nancy Burer embrace after 7 years
--President Richard Nixon greets returning POW John McCain, with unidentified man
--Bodies of Confederate dead gathered for burial, Antietam 1862
--Unburied Confederate lying on Union soldiers grave
--Crowd observes burial of Unknown Soldier from WWI
--John Fischetti cartoon, Chinese soldier sitting atop American soldier's grave, 1953
Douglas Borgstedt cartoon
--National League of Families Chairman EC Mills, President Gerald Ford, unidentified man
--Unidentified soldiers carrying coffins of returning dead from Vietnam off plane, Travis AFB, 29 Mar 1977
--Lt. Col James Lindbergh Hughes led through streets of Hanoi, 1967 by 2 North Korean guards
--Several unidentified Iranians and blindfolded American hostage, Tehran November 1979
--President Ronald Reagan, 28 Jan 1983
--Soldier of Fortune magazine, Bo Gritz on cover
--President Reagan, unidentified men and soldiers, burial of Vietnam War unknown soldier
--President Bill Clinton, Capt Lawrence Evert, Daniel and David Evert, 2 unidentified North Vietnamese women
--Hanoi Army Museum Director Colonel Nguyen Trong Dai, Senator John Kerry
George Bush July 1992
--President Clinton, John Kerry, John McCain, VP Al Gore, SoS William Christopher, --Defense Secretary William Peery, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake



Ann Mill Griffiths, President Ronald Reagan

Spies & Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam

Spies & Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam, by Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade
University Press of Kansas, 2000
279 pages plus 22 photos scattered throughout text, 7 maps scattered throughout text, Notes, Notes on Sources, and index

Front Matter
During the Vietnam war, the United States sought to undermine Hanoi's subversion of the Saigon regime by sending Vietnamese operatives behind enemy lines. A secret to most Americans, this covert operation was far from secret to Hanoi: all of the commandos were killed or captured, and many were turned by the Communists to report false information.

Spes and Commandos traces the rise and demise of this secret operation-started by the CIA in 1960and expanded by the Pentagon in 1964,-in the first book to examine the program from both sides of the war. Kenneth Conboy and Dale Andrade interviewed CIA and military personnel and traveled in Vietnam to locate former commandos who had been captured by Hanoi, enabling them to tell the complete story of these covert activities from high-level decision making to the actual experiences of the agents.

This book vividly describes scores of dangerous missions-including raids against North Vietnamese coastal installations and the air-dropping of dozens of agents into enemy territory-as well as psychological warfare designed to make Hanoi believe the "resistance movement" was larger than it actually was.

It offers a more complete operational account of the program than has ever been made available-particularly in its early years-and ties known events in the war to covert operations, such as details of the "34A Operations" that led to the Tonkin Gulf incidents in 1964. It also explains in no uncertain terms why the whole plan was doomed to failure from the start.

One of the remarkable features of the operation, claim the authors, is that its failures were so glaring. They argue that the CIA, and later the Pentagon, was unaware for years that Hanoi had compromised the commandos, even though some agents missed radio deadlines or filed suspicious reports. Operational errors were not attributed to conspiracy or counterintelligence, they contend, but simply to poor planning and lack of imagination.

Although it flourished for ten years under cover of the wider war, covert activity in Vietnam is now recognized as a disaster. Conboy and Andrade's account of that episode is a sobering tale that lends a new perspective on the war as it reclaims the lost lives of these unsung spies and commandos.

Table of Contents
Preface
1. Trojan Horses
2. Singletons
3. Airborne agents
4. Second Wind
5. VULCAN
6. Bang and Burn
7. Nasty Boats
8. Sacred Sword Patriot's League
9. Switchback
10. New Management
11. Sea Commandos
12. Tonkin Gulf
13. Maritime Options
14. Frustration Syndrome
15. Premonitions
16. Suspicious Minds
17. STRATA
18. RED DRAGON
19. Short-Term Targets
20. Denouement
21. Guerrillas in their Midst
22. Urgency
23. Closing the Gate
24. Backdoor
25. Exceptions to the Rule
26. The Quiet One
27. Last Missions
28. Defeat
Epilogue
Notes
A Note on Sources
Index

Maps
North Vietnam
South Vietnam
Agent Insertions, 1961
Airborne Insertions, 1962-1963
Airborne Insertions, 1964-1965
Airborne Insertions, 1966-1967
STRATA target areas

Photos
-8 unidentified agents from VNQDD in prison uniforms
-Civilian Vietnamese viewing unearthed weapons, all unidentified, April 19635
-Admiral Alfred A Burke, US Navy chief of operations and Royal Norwegian Navy Commander, Vice Admiral Erling Hostvedt, inspecting a Nasty-class patrol boat at Haakonsvrn, Norway, May 1960
-Overhead view of Camp Long Thanh
-Combat swimmer Truong Van Le, March 1964
-Nhuyen Van Nhu, leader of Team NEPTUNE, March 1964
-US Army interrogator and Vietnamese linguist David Elliott
-Unidentified members of Biet Hai team in parachute training
-South Vietnamese A-1G
-Pony Express calling card, 20th Helicopter Squadron's Pony Express detachment
-Eight unidentified members of Team SAMSON
-Sergeants Richard Meadows and Charles Kerns with 6 unidentified members of Team OHIO, on USS Intrepid, 1966
-12 unidentified members of Team STRATA, Sept 1967
-Major Alton Deviney, CH-3 commander, Sept 1967
-STATA Program: Francois, Major Austin Wilgus, Major Victor Calderon
-Captain David Kriskovitch and unidentified member of team RED DRAGON, summer 1967
-Lt Col Jonathan CArney and Major Roland Dutton, Skyhook test
-Commander Ho Van Ky Thoai and for unidentified South Vietnamese soldiers
-Prince Sihanouk, his wife Monique, and Pathet Lao leader Soupannouvang at funeral for Ho Chi Minh, Sept 1969
-Unidentified US officer with five unidentified members of EARTH ANGEL
-Two unidentified Vietnamese signers and several unidentified soldiers, June 1972

The Hidden History of the Vietnam War, by John Prados

The Hidden History of the Vietnam War, by John Prados
Ivan R. Dee, 1995
297 pages plus Notes and Index
No photos, no maps, no illustrations
Library: 959.704 PRA

Front Matter
"Even now," John Prados writes, "years after the Vietnam War, when its outcome is clear to see, some observers still pine for the lost victory. If only this had been different, or that had been done better, victory would have been ours. A number of these ideal solutions are proposed by witnesses to Vietnam who were themselves participants in the war. But memory fades, and the proponents of one or another of these latter-day solutions do not recall the way solutions were advanced then, every day, with equal confidence and self-assurance. The men who led the war had every opportunity to fulfill Lyndon Johnson's dream and 'nail the coonskin to the wall.' The war nevertheless ended in 1975, with Hanoi's troops marching into Saigon and South Vietnamese generals fleeing on American helicopters."

In The Hidden History of the Vietnam War, Mr. Prados revisits the conflict by taking the reader behind conventional histories. Drawing from a broad range of sources and using new evidence, he focuses on key strategies, events, and personalities in the struggle. In narratives and vignettes that display his impressive command of facts and analysis, he sheds new light on the issues and punctures the popular mythologies of the war.

The book explores the mysteries of the Tonkin Gulf, evaluates the quality of intelligence before Tet, profiles the influence of the Buddhists in the politics of South Vietnam, investigates the war of numbers over body counts, analyzes the failure of the large-unit war, assesses the performance of air power -- in short, Mr. Prados deals with virtually every major issue of the war, bringing to the discussion a fresh perspective. But he also breaks new ground in telling the story of the first prisoners-of-war in Vietnam; reinterprets the role of Lyndon Johnson; furnishes the best account to date of communications intelligence in the war; describes the social characteristic of the South Vietnamese military in a way not seen before; and defines the religious and political conflicts that hindered the Vietnamese military effort. He provides the first detailed accounts of the 1972 crisis over the mining of Haiphong Harbor and of the Nixon administration's effort to destroy American veteran groups that opposed the war.

The Hidden History of the Vietnam War is compelling history, filled with new information, skillful analysis, deft portraits, and persuasive conclusions. It is likely to become an essential book on the history of the Vietnam War.

Table of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in the Text
A Note on Military Unit Names
1. The First American Prisoners
2. Profile: Waiting in the Wings
3. Confucians and Quagmires
4. Profile: George Carver (1)
5. The Covert War
6. Six Mysteries of the Tonkin Gulf
7. Profile: Generals and Politics in South Vietnam
8. Special Warfare in the Central Highlands
9. Bullets, Bombs and Buddhists
10. Profile: Buddhist in a Sea of Fire
11. Parameters of Victory
12. White Wing to Pershing: The Failure of Large-unit War
13. War of Numbers: Westmorland Case Reprise
14. What Surprise? Whose Intelligence? Intelligence at Tet
15. Tet!
16. Red Tide at Night
17. No Damned Dinbinphoo! Khe Sanh and the US High Command
18. Profile: Tim Brown's Vietnam
19. Victory Through Air Power
20. Spooks in the Ether
21. Phoenix: The War Against the Viet Cong Apparat
22. Little World, Big War
23. Widening the War: Cambodia 1970
24. Laos 1971: No Plug in the Funnel
25. One More Opinion to Try: The Mining of Haiphong Harbor
26. Profile: George Carver (II)
27. The Veteran's Antiwar Movement Under Siege: Miami and Gainesville
28. Victory is an Illusion
A Note on Sources
Index

Manifesto

This blog will cover every book ever written on the Vietnam War.