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FOREWORD
What befell Tran Ngoc Chau in 1970 is the subject of this book: how a Vietnamese nationalist, brave and incorruptible, one of the most imaginative strategists of the war in the field of political action and pacification, was brought down by the venality of power politics involving his own government and the government of the United States. Chau was pushed into disgrace and jailed on trumped-up charges, despite efforts to save him by a small group of his American friends, who, like him, were unconventional warriors, mavericks in their own bureaucracies. The oldest of Chau's friends, and the symbolic leader of the group, was Edward G. Lansdale, the legendary intelligence operative; and in a larger sense this is an account of the political action programs that were attempted in Vietnam, and a tale of the American failure to comprehend the kind of war that was being fought in that ravaged land.
The questions posed in this book, indirect as they are, revolving around the experiences of Chau and Lansdale and their friends, have nothing to do with whether the United States should or should not have been in Vietnam, whether the war was just or unjust, moral or immoral. Rather, I have accepted Vietnam as a historical fact and have tried to show the way the strategy for fighting the war evolved, how it ultimately came down to a choice between a heavy-handed military approach, which was adopted, and a more subtle application of political and military programs, which was advocated by Chau and his unconventional friends. It is perhaps the least known, and certainly the most misunderstood, aspect of the Vietnam War. |
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