DEATH OF A NATION

Was JFK a hawk or a dove? Was the tragedy of Vietnam inevitable? Jones (History/Univ. of Alabama) provides a cord or two of fresh wood to fuel the ongoing debate.

The main focus here is the Kennedy administration’s dealings with the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, a man of extraordinary failings in a time that demanded flawless guidance. A Catholic in a Buddhist country, a keeper of secrets and secret bank accounts, a wily survivor of intrigues, ever quick to undo US reform efforts toward democratization, Diem proved to be a nightmare of a puppet. Kennedy, increasingly mistrustful of the American military that had steered him so badly wrong at the Bay of Pigs and was now apparently in the habit of lying to him at every turn, sought to extricate himself from the faltering alliance with Diem. Though he was warned away each time by dire predictions of Communist takeover, JFK eventually formulated and approved a plan that would have provided for the complete withdrawal of American troops from South Vietnam by 1965. That plan came a cropper for several reasons, Jones writes. When world attention was drawn to Vietnam in the wake of the Buddhist self-immolations and subsequent revolt (all of which infuriated Kennedy), the CIA and other elements of the American government encouraged a military coup that ended in Diem’s murder and the installation of a regime that may have been even worse. Kennedy himself was assassinated only three weeks later. Jones’s long, detailed what-if scenario raises intriguing questions, and he argues quite convincingly that had the coup not been bungled and Johnson not propelled to leadership, Vietnam may have ended quite differently—almost certainly not in the deaths of 58,000 Americans and untold hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.

Solid history marked by memorable moments (including a glimpse of David Halberstam looting Saigon’s presidential palace) and the highly effective use of hitherto classified documents.