2014: What are you reading at the moment?

[onager]

9. "Embers of War" by Fredrik Logevall

Full title: "Embers of War - The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam"

Fascinating history of events concerning Vietnam from 1946-1954. I've read many books about how the US got involved in Vietnam, and this is one of the best and most detailed. Logevall had access to recently declassified material from American, British, French, Chinese, Russian and Vietnamese archives.

At times the book reads like a John LeCarre thriller about low dealing in high places. With some of the lowest dealing coming from America's High Priest of the Domino Theory in the 1950s, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

It's amazing how very close the USA came to sending American combat troops to Vietnam in the early 1950s. Aside from Dulles, two people constantly pushing for that were Vice-President Richard Nixon and Admiral Arthur Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Nixon and Radford even seriously floated the idea of using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, to save the French from defeat.

Saner people noted that China might react rather...strongly to nukes being used right next door. To which Radford suggested hitting China with a few nukes as well.

No wonder British diplomats, in their back-channel messages, called Radford a "belligerent dim-bulb," among other things.

And that's part of what makes the book so fascinating - the wealth of detail about the political haggling behind the scenes. Haggling that was going on between the Eastern as well as the Western powers, with Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap constantly having to fend off "suggestions" from their Chinese advisors.

A good absorbing read. Highly recommended.