Brother Enemy: The War After the War

Chanda, Washington bureau chief for Far Eastern Economic Review, traces the steps by which the Third Indochina War became intertwined with the Soviet-American rivalry and the Sino-American alliance. The book reveals in detail how close Washington came in 1977 to establishing ties with Hanoi and why President Carter shelved the issue. Chanda presents a startling and well-supported explanation for the Cambodian massacres: a Khmer Rouge decision that Cambodian revolutionary power had to be built at breakneck speed by means of ideological ""purification'' to prepare for the inevitable life-or-death struggle against the Vietnamese. He goes on to show that the Khmer Rouge sought to preempt the invasion by taking the war to Vietnam itself, upsetting not only Hanoi's timetable but that of Peking as well. Chanda notes that Vietnam, once a hero of the Third World, has become an international pariah, largely due to Hanoi's policy toward Cambodia. (November 18)