cover image A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War

A Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story That Changed the Course of the Vietnam War

Jeff Stein. St. Martin's Press, $22.95 (414pp) ISBN 978-0-312-07037-3

In June 1969 a group of Green Beret officers, suspecting that one of their Vietnamese operatives was a double agent, executed him and dropped his weighted body into the ocean off Nha Trang. A dogged investigation by two Army detectives led to their arrest, followed by a hearing to determine whether they would face court-martial. The admitted triggerman, Capt. Robert Marasco, defended the group's action by stating that eliminating Thai Khac Chuyen was no different than eliminating a Vietcong during a search-and-destroy mission. Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, didn't see it that way; neither did Army Secretary Stanley Resor. When the case became a cause celebre in the States, however, most Americans viewed the arrests as evidence of the high-level politicking that had hamstrung our troops from the start. In the end the Army dropped the charges, but the ``Green Beret case'' nevertheless had a significant effect on the conduct of the war: it provoked Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers. In this skillfully told, engrossing narrative, Stein ( The Vietnam Fact Book ) presents all sides of this controversial case, a veritable metaphor for the ambiguities of the Vietnam War. Photos. (June)