cover image The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam

The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam

Richard H. Shultz, Jr.. HarperCollins Publishers, $27.5 (408pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019454-3

Soldiers and spies do not mix. That's the principal lesson of this alternately dry and informative analysis of U.S. covert activities during the Vietnam War. Schultz, a historian at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, uses recently declassified Pentagon documents and interviews with major players (including former defense secretary Robert McNamara) to show how secret U.S. military operations were consistently hamstrung by Washington and undercut by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The problems began in 1963, when President Kennedy took responsibility for covert action in Vietnam away from the CIA and entrusted it to the Pentagon's Special Operations Group (SOG), even though the prevailing opinion among the Pentagon brass was that espionage and covert action were a waste of time. Though there were some isolated successes, basic ineptitude and uncoordinated thinking characterized the SOG's efforts, according to the author. For example, Schultz explains how SOG officers created a radio station to broadcast propaganda into the enemy's homes: the only problem was that most North Vietnamese didn't own radios. Schultz argues that there is a place for covert activities run out of the Pentagon, but only after some far-reaching restructuring. He could have strengthened his book by including more discussions of ground-level operations and by paying less attention to bureaucratic infighting and political meddling. (Dec.)