Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy

Erroneous mindsets, mutual ignorance and misunderstandings between Washington and Hanoi drove the escalation of of the Vietnam War, concludes former Secretary of Defense McNamara in a challenging report full of revelations both fascinating and appalling. Based on six sets of talks held in Hanoi between 1995 and 1998 that brought together U.S. and Vietnamese scholars, policy makers and former military officers, this major reappraisal of the war is presented as a critical oral history. Among the meetings participants were McNamara, Nicholas Katzenbach (former deputy secretary of state), General Vo Nguyen Giap (ex-North Vietnamese defense minister) and Vietnams retired foreign minister Nguyen Co Thach. During the talks, McNamara writes, he was amazed to learn that Hanoi saw U.S. peace initiatives as part of a sinister plot to establish a permanent colonial regime in Saigon. Washington, misperceiving North Vietnam as a communist puppet bent on conquering all of Southeast Asia, let a mind-boggling number of opportunities slip by that might have averted war or brought a negotiated settlement. We learn that elements within Hanois top leadership wanted to accept a neutral Saigon coalition government; we are told that key escalation points (e.g., the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin attack) were not ordered by Hanoi to target Americans, as Washington assumed, but were decentralized decisions made for essentially local reasons. While it would be easy to dismiss this book as a self-flagellating exercise in hindsight, its unprecedented testimony by key players on both sides makes it an invaluable sequel to McNamaras 1995 bestseller, In Retrospect. Photos not seen by PW. (May)