Vietnam, An Epic Tragedy

by Max Hastings

  Doug Ramsey not only talked to me for four hours at his home in Boulder City, Nevada, but gave me a huge, unpublished typescript memoir describing his fascinating and terrible experiences. Gu Renquan has translated Chinese material. My peerless Russian researcher and translator Dr Lyuba Vinogradovna had the inspirational notion that in Ukraine there are accessible Soviet veterans who served in wartime air defence units in North Vietnam: subsequent interviews yielded some fascinating insights. My country neighbour, the late Col. John Cameron-Hayes, gave me a vivid account of his experiences among the first British troops to land in Saigon in 1945. I am indebted to Professor Edwin Moise for flagging some errors in the draft text and maps.

  Professor Pham Quang Minh of Hanoi University provided introductions of the highest value. My interpreter in the capital, Le Hoang Giang, is a young man who obviously possesses the highest gifts, and who I hope will be granted the opportunities to fulfil them. Max Egremont loaned me the unpublished Vietnam memoir of a distant Australian connection, surgeon Norman Wyndham. In 1978 the BBC’s Michael Charlton and Anthony Moncrieff conducted interviews with a host of Americans – and at that date most of the big players were still alive – about US decision-making between 1945 and 1975. Some of their material was broadcast in a series of radio documentaries, and the full transcripts were subsequently published as a book, surprisingly little used by historians since. I value it highly, because Charlton posed many of the questions I would have asked myself, had I enjoyed the same opportunities. Among the war’s vast literature, I have made extensive use of the works of David and Mai Elliott, especially the former’s monumental study of life in the Mekong delta through the struggle, and the latter’s memoir. The magnificent books of Fred Logevall, The Embers of War and Choosing War, have powerfully influenced my own narrative, as have Greg Daddis’s fine campaign studies. Professor Mark Clodfelter, an authoritative historian of the air war, has generously read and commented upon my chapters on the bombing. The great Tim O’Brien, my fellow alumnus of Macalester College, Minn., checked the passage headed ‘Fieldcraft’. My old friend Dr Williamson Murray made invaluable corrections to the entire draft, as did Con Crane and David Elliott. Margaret MacMillan provided some authoritative comments about Nixon in China. Professor Peter Edwards read the pages on Australia’s role. I have profited from meetings with all the above authors. My old and dear friend Professor Sir Michael Howard OM, CH, MC, read my initial draft and made comments that improved – and considerably shortened – the final text.

  My agents in London and New York, Michael Sissons and Peter Matson, have filled the same indispensable roles in my life for the past thirty-five years. Publishers Arabella Pike and Robert Lacey in London, and Jonathan Jao in New York, are everything the best of their trade aspire to be, yet seldom are – sympathetic, supportive, wise. My secretary Rachel Lawrence has been picking up broken china in my wake since 1986, and for this book also organised my complex travel arrangements. A friend told me recently that my wife Penny is being considered for canonisation: this would not suffice adequately to recognise her extraordinary contribution to my life and work – and to the happiness of everyone else who knows her.

  Notes and References

  Since this is a work for the general reader, I have here confined myself to attributing sources for quotations used in the text which derive from published articles and books or from my own original researches. I have not sourced historical facts or quotations which are common ground in many existing works. Where only one book by a given writer is cited in the bibliography, I give below only their name, while titles are added where multiple works by the same author are cited.

  USAHEC denotes the archive of the US Army’s Heritage and Education Center at Carlisle, Pa. USMCA denotes the historical archive of the US Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia. UKNA denotes the British National Archive. AI indicates an author interview carried out by myself or by my Russian or Chinese researchers. MP references interviews in Hanoi conducted by Merle Pribbenow in 2007. The Abrams Tapes constitute an extraordinary source, unprecedented in the annals of warfare, recording the command meetings of Creighton Abrams during his 1968–72 tenure at the summit of MACV: Lewis Sorley has edited transcripts from the originals held at Carlisle. Some references below to Vietnamese online material are necessarily imprecise.

  Chapter 1 – Beauty and Many Beasts

  ‘Among Hai’s earliest’ Doan, Phuong Hai The Sea on the Horizon Dong Van Publishing San Jose CA 2000 p.35

  ‘some that made’ ibid. p.40

  ‘Let us, gentlemen’ Karnow, Stanley Vietnam: A History Century 1983 p.85

  ‘Almost every visitor’ West, Richard War and Peace in Vietnam Sinclair-Stevenson 1965 p.3

  ‘sound to me like’ Young, Gavin A Wavering Grace Viking 1997 p.18

  ‘identical with that of’ Lewis, Norman A Dragon Apparent Jonathan Cape 1951 p.99

  ‘Your ancestors were’ MP interview Luu Doan Huynh

  ‘of their long’ Wyndham MS p.14

  ‘He never knew’ AI Duong 10.11.16

  ‘a French town’ Lewis p.19

  ‘Who is this man’ ibid. p.24

  ‘They are too civilized’ ibid. p.27

  ‘How can a grasshopper?’ Elliott, David W.P. Mekong Delta 1930–1975 Vol. I M.E. Sharpe 2003 p.34

  ‘It is impossible’ Andelman, David Shattered Peace Wiley 2008 p.128

  ‘I always thought’ Karnow p.123

  ‘He exuded an’ Tang, Truong Nhu A Vietcong Memoir Vintage 1986 p.11

  ‘We thought to ourselves’ MP interview Tran Trong Trung

  ‘You wouldn’t do that if you’ AI Tran 9.7.16

  ‘Skinny bodies in rags’ Luan, Nguyen Cong Nationalist in the Vietnam Wars Indiana University Press 2012 p.25

  ‘When you opened the front’ MP interview Van Ky

  ‘oai’ – ‘awe-inspiring’ Elliott, Duong Van Mai The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family Oxford 1999 p.105

  ‘because if the Japanese’ MP interview Trung

  ‘The seven intelligence men’ People’s Public Security Newspaper 21.4.14

  ‘by frank and’ Lacouture, Jean & Devillers, Philippe End of a War Pall Mall 1969 p.138

  ‘The French have fled’ Documents of the DRV

  ‘Our teachers were’ Trullinger, James W. Village at War: An Account of Revolution in Vietnam Longman 1980 p.43

  ‘I perhaps was’ Charlton, Michael & Moncrieff, Anthony eds Many Reasons Why: The American Involvement in Vietnam Scolar 1978 p.12

  ‘the one name’ Ky, Nguyen Cao Buddha’s Child: My Fight to Save Vietnam St Martin’s 2002 p.19

  ‘We were hungry’ Luan p.35

  ‘They came to see me’ AI John Cameron-Hayes 14.4.16

  ‘I knew nothing about’ AI Bang 7.10.16

  ‘without the Empire’ Girardet, Raoul L’Idée Coloniale en France Table Ronde 1972 p.281

  ‘there would have been’ Logevall, Fredrik The Embers of War Random House 2012 p.106

  ‘Voilà!’ Tang p.12

  ‘If we have to’ AI Hoi 14.9.16

  Chapter 2 – The ‘Dirty War’

  ‘A Vietminh document’ Rocolle, Pierre Pourquoi Dien Bien Phu? Flammarion 1968 p.95

  ‘at a mayoral reception’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.201

  ‘A village on the north–south’ Luan p.116

  ‘I had seen many corpses’ ibid. p.81

  ‘Somehow, as he spoke’ Lewis p.18

  ‘The massacre of’ Goscha, Christopher The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam Allen Lane 2016 p.244

  ‘floating down the river’ Fall, Bernard ‘The Political-Religious Sects of Vietnam’ Pacific Affairs 28, no. 3 September 1955 p.246

  ‘it was only by making people’ Lewis p.177

  ‘Legionnaires entered’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.148

  ‘French soldiers stripped’ ibid. p.152

  ‘how could it fail’ Simpson, Howard R. Tiger in the Barbed Wire Kodansha International 1992 p.92
r />   ‘Instead they all’ Goscha p.242

  ‘Among their couriers’ Xuan Ba, a series of articles and interviews with Le Duan’s second wife, published in Tien Phong newspaper 25.6.2006 and in succeeding weeks

  ‘Our submission to the French’ Luan pp.4, 67

  ‘Lt. Gen. Sir Gerald Templer’ Cloake, John Templer: Tiger of Malaya Harrap 1985 p.263

  ‘We marvelled that’ AI Bang 7.10.16

  ‘I never knew’ Greene, Graham The Quiet American Heinemann 1955 pp.72, 214

  ‘On the evening’ Lind, Michael Vietnam: The Necessary War Free Press 1999 p.1

  ‘Here we were’ Charlton & Moncrieff p.50

  ‘Why, therefore’ quoted Karnow p.178

  ‘There is now’ UKNA FO371/103518 23.8.53

  ‘From the books’ Luan p.114

  ‘Without a father’ AI Vu Anh Tram 16.10.16

  ‘Everybody knew’ ibid. 8.10.16

  ‘At twenty she became’ AI Binh 5.10.16

  ‘Debtors could become’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.123

  ‘Our enemies are’ Lewis p.309

  ‘simple men’ Windrow, Martin The Last Valley Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2004 p.161

  ‘not a few innocent’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.92

  ‘When Nguyen Cong’ Luan p.94

  ‘At My Thanh’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.83

  ‘a lot of those’ AI Binh 5.10.16

  ‘The people were very’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.144

  ‘Anh, a daughter’ Le Thi Anh in Santoli, Al To Bear Any Burden: The Vietnamese War and its Aftermath Sphere 1986 p.35

  ‘The spirit was’ MP interview Van Ky

  ‘There was something’ ibid.

  ‘red with the yellow’ Trullinger p.43

  ‘The injustice of it all’ Nguyen, Duc Huy A Soldier’s Life (with Nguyen Thong Nhat) People’s Army Publishing House Hanoi 2011 p.35

  ‘They made things hard’ MP Oral History Interview 2007

  ‘For them the Resistance’ Ky p.19

  Chapter 3 – The Fortress That Never Was

  ‘to oblige the enemy’ Rocolle p.57 13.11.53

  ‘Giap was always better’ ibid. p.47

  ‘Each night when freezing fog’ ibid. p.251

  ‘On va leur’ ibid. p.329

  ‘Time passes slowly’ ibid. p.327

  ‘Langlais once found’ ibid. p.70

  ‘We believed we could’ ibid. p.335

  ‘Bombing and shelling’ Luan p.63

  ‘the garrison might have fared’ Rocolle p.275

  ‘A stupor fell upon all’ ibid. p.352

  ‘Navarre observed’ ibid. p.371 letter of 21.3.54

  ‘Navarre instead proposed’ ibid. p.411

  ‘before the end’ ibid. p.307

  ‘French officers had always’ ibid. p.37

  ‘between the men of’ ibid. p.407

  ‘Whether it rains’ Vo Nguyen Giap Collected Writings Saigon Cultural Publishing House 2009 p.132

  ‘rice so rotten’ Rocolle p.324

  ‘Cries. Tears’ Fall, Bernard Hell is a Very Small Place p.162

  ‘Certainement, the helicopter’ Rocolle p.390

  ‘had given a deplorable’ ibid. p.404

  ‘sang the Marseillaise’ ibid. p.296 quoting Bigeard

  ‘He has the weaknesses’ ibid. p.372

  ‘enemy parachutages’ Giap p.130

  Chapter 4 – Bloody Footprints

  ‘Blunt notice is’ USN&WR 9.4.54

  ‘May it not be’ Logevall Embers p.475

  ‘go over very quickly’ ibid. p.479

  ‘Those who can’t’ Rocolle p.480

  ‘if Ho Chi Minh’ Spectator 30.4.54

  ‘The loss of the fortress’ UKNA FO371/112057

  ‘UK attitude is one’ Cable, James The Geneva Conference of 1954 Macmillan 1986 p.65

  ‘take a good smacking’ Logevall Embers p.508

  ‘The whole damn’ Fall, Bernard Street Without Joy Stackpole 1967 p.260

  ‘As well as military’ Rocolle p.489

  ‘My refusal to’ ibid. p.513

  ‘There are only ten’ Capt. E.J. Pouget Nous Etions à Dien Bien Phu Presses de la Cité Paris 1964 pp.329–30

  ‘Meanwhile around the’ Rocolle p.538 quoting Maj. Grauwin

  ‘under the harsh, naked’ Pouget p.328

  ‘This was an unbelievable’ MP interview Van Ky

  ‘a triumph of the will’ ibid. Trung 2007

  ‘You are here for’ Windrow p.644

  ‘Dienbienphu became an’ Rocolle p.568

  ‘I wonder that we’ AI Ramsey 22.9.16

  ‘The American position’ NY Herald Tribune 29.4.54

  ‘The key to the Korea issue’ Logevall Embers p.597

  ‘so sad that they seemed’ Hai p.37

  ‘Indian Army officers’ Simpson p.136

  ‘They came forward in two files’ ibid. p.139

  ‘This won him’ ibid. p.142

  ‘whether it had all’ Lewis p.316

  ‘The happiest day’ Trullinger p.72

  Chapter 5 – The Twin Tyrannies

  ‘Nguyen Duong’s modestly’ AI Duong 10.11.16

  ‘Come outside’ AI Kieu Chinh 17.9.16

  ‘Why? Because I was’ AI Dinh 9.7.16

  ‘several French officers’ Fall Street Without Joy p.278

  ‘banish selfish’ Asselin, Pierre Hanoi’s Road to the Vietnam War 1954–1965 University of California Press 2013 p.24

  ‘demonization of the’ ibid. p.26

  ‘The state had removed’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.354

  ‘We indiscriminately viewed’ Giap p.107

  ‘Assets and draught animals’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.231

  ‘Northerner Doan Phuong Hai’s’ Hai p.38

  ‘Many things happened’ MP interview Toan

  ‘enemies of the people’ Tang p.299

  ‘reactionary Catholic priests’ Linh & Mac p.54

  ‘Between 1956 and 1959’ ibid. p.105

  ‘Chinh secured this’ AI Kieu Chinh 16.9.16

  ‘he profited greatly’ Santoli p.40

  ‘with tears streaming’ Tran, Quynh Memories of Le Duan http:/vanhoavn.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-post_7386.html

  ‘There is little point’ Asselin p.46

  ‘See you in two years’ Muoi Thap in Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.169

  ‘Tell Ho it will be’ Ba, Xuan a series of articles and interviews with Le Duan’s second wife, published in Tien Phong newspaper 25.6.06 and in succeeding weeks

  ‘We took our lives’ AI Nguyen Quoc Si 21.5.16

  ‘For many of us’ Nguyen Duc Cuong b.1941 quoted in Taylor, Maxwell Swords and Plowshares Norton 1972 p.93

  ‘a paradise’ Hayslip, Le Ly & Wurts, Jay When Heaven and Earth Changed Places Doubleday 1989 p.146

  ‘What I respected’ AI Scotton 11.9.16

  ‘Lansdale liked to tell a story’ ibid.

  ‘M. Diem has many of the qualities’ UKNA FO371/123388

  ‘Every son, daughter’ Life magazine 16.5.55

  ‘Turn Catholic and’ Fitzgerald, Frances Fire in the Lake Vintage 1972 p.139

  ‘repair war damage’ Logevall Embers p.647

  ‘To take an Annamite to bed’ Greene p.5

  ‘Each Sunday we would gather’ Tang pp.1,3, 4

  ‘War is my enemy’ AI Kieu Chinh 14.9.16

  ‘I regarded this’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.167

  ‘Vietnam’s Man of’ New York Times 7.5.57, Globe 6.5.57

  ‘The Tough Miracle Man’ Life 13.5.57

  ‘like a puppet’ Higgins, Marguerite Our Vietnam Nightmare Harper & Row 1971 p.168

  ‘great big children’ Vietnam: A Television History PBS 1983 prog. 2

  ‘the Diem regime’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.250

  ‘The people in Hanoi’ AI Sheehan 5.3.16

  ‘The nurse running’ Trullinger p.76

  ‘it is not impossible’ Logevall Embers p.xix

  ‘in the three years’ Buttinger, Joseph
Vietnam New York 1971

  ‘Do you know why?’ Santoli p.59

  ‘A peasant told American’ Trullinger p.79

  ‘nonetheless sneaked’ Huy Duc p.145

  ‘They have abandoned us’ ibid. p.146

  ‘taciturn and chilly’ Tang p.127

  ‘Only in the twenty-first’ Xuan, Ba a series of articles and interviews with Nguyen Thuy Nga, published in Tien Phong newspaper

  ‘Uncle Ho!’ Asselin p.56

  ‘Only [in 1959]’ MP interview Tran Trong Trung

  ‘The Czech ambassador’ Asselin p.83

  ‘The standard of living’ BNA Vietnam Annual Report 1959 p.13

  ‘ready for an uprising’ Asselin p.83

  ‘I hated the soldiers’ Fitzgerald p.153

  ‘I got excited’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.227

  ‘The Tiger has’ ibid. p.255

  ‘Better the head’ ibid. p.306

  ‘their magic rice-cookers’ ibid. p.250

  ‘cruel terrorism’ Asselin p.70

  ‘Because of the jungle’ Elliott Mekong Delta Vol. I p.217

  ‘Later that year’ 23.12.60 House Committee on Armed Services hearings on Vietnam pp.1353–5

  ‘The avowed objectives’ Tang p.71

  Chapter 6 – Some of the Way With Jfk

  ‘a nation of homosexuals’ Schlesinger, Arthur Journals 1956–2002 Penguin 2007 31.3.62 p.150

  ‘a great place’ Kurlantzick, Joshua A Great Place to Have a War Simon & Schuster 2017 p.15

  ‘they have so much land’ Quynh Memories of Le Duan

  ‘the British were desperate’ UKNA FO371/159715

  ‘As a West Point’ AI Eiland 14.11.16

  ‘He had given’ Halberstam, David The Best and the Brightest Random House 1972 p.135

  ‘The Vietnamese are an’ Memo Lansdale to Taylor 23.10.61 in FRUS 1961–63 Vol. I doc 185 pp.418–19

  ‘force the peasants’ Elliott, Duong Van Mai RAND in South-East Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era RAND 2010 p.31

  ‘It isn’t just!’ Simpson p.193

  ‘She was fascinated’ Elliott Sacred Willow p.286

  ‘This was where’ AI David Elliott 23.9.16