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Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar
Bernard Fall wrote the classics Street Without Joy and Hell in a Very Small Place , which detailed the French experience in Vietnam. One of the first (and the best-informed) Western observers to say that the United States could not win there either, he was killed in Vietnam in 1967 while accompanying a Marine platoon. Written by his widow Dorothy, Bernard Memories of a Soldier-Scholar tells the story of this courageous and influential Frenchman, who experienced many of the major events of the twentieth century. His mother perished at Auschwitz, his father was killed by the Gestapo, and he himself fought in the Resistance. It focuses, however, on Vietnam and on two love stories. The first details Fall’s love for Vietnam and his efforts to save the country from destruction and the United States from disaster. The second shows a husband and father dedicated to a cause that continuously lured him away from those he loved. With a foreword by the late David Halberstam.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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January 25, 2024
George Orwell went to Spain, as did Arthur Koestler, André Malraux, and Ernest Hemingway. War photographers documented military conflicts from the Crimean War in the 1850s through the American Civil War and onwards, but the phenomenon of the writer/witness (as opposed to the mere journalist) really got its start during the Spanish Civil War.
Orwell in Spain
Perhaps it took a controversial event to draw writers out of their armchairs and into the fray; certainly their accounts of the battles they observed, and the human stories they related, of people caught up in the cataclysm, seemed more compelling, the insights more valid, the greater the risks the author took when collecting the stories. We have iconic photographs to prove it.
Hemingway in Spain
Bernard Fall was with the French at Dien Bien Phu. A Jewish refugee whose parents fled Austria after the Anschluss (neither survived the war), he grew up--fast--in France, joining the Resistance at the age of sixteen and going on to fight with the French Army in the Alps. Just nineteen when the war ended, he became a translator at Nuremberg and was soon investigating the Krupp Industries' use of Jewish slave labor from the lagers.
He earned his bona fides well before Vietnam, in other words, but his wartime experiences and personal losses gave him an enduring taste for danger. He loved being in the thick of things, accompanying marines on missions through the jungles of the Mekong Delta, flying in an American "Skyraider" on a bombing mission over the Camau Peninsula--supposedly a Viet Cong outpost:
He taught his students at Howard University to be critical of the government's claims and schooled a generation of war reporters on the realities of the conflict from his home in Washington. Walter Cronkite, Daniel Ellsberg, David Halberstam, Charley Mohr, and Peter Arnett are just some of the journalists who consulted him. Senators Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, and Frank Church were frequent visitors as well. He was performing a vital function right where he was, but Fall felt the need to go back, time after time.
In a letter he'd written to his wife Dorothy on Christmas Eve, 1966, obviously intending to put himself in harm's way yet again, he portrayed himself in a self-sacrificial light:
But he had his demons and Dorothy is still haunted by her failure to help him exorcise them. Her narrative is filled with self-recrimination. After a lengthy quotation from one of his letters to her, an exhilarating (to him) account of some death-defying raid he made more or less on a lark, she attempts to parse her her thoughts at the time:
Fall in Vietnam
Orwell in Spain
Perhaps it took a controversial event to draw writers out of their armchairs and into the fray; certainly their accounts of the battles they observed, and the human stories they related, of people caught up in the cataclysm, seemed more compelling, the insights more valid, the greater the risks the author took when collecting the stories. We have iconic photographs to prove it.
Hemingway in Spain
Bernard Fall was with the French at Dien Bien Phu. A Jewish refugee whose parents fled Austria after the Anschluss (neither survived the war), he grew up--fast--in France, joining the Resistance at the age of sixteen and going on to fight with the French Army in the Alps. Just nineteen when the war ended, he became a translator at Nuremberg and was soon investigating the Krupp Industries' use of Jewish slave labor from the lagers.
He earned his bona fides well before Vietnam, in other words, but his wartime experiences and personal losses gave him an enduring taste for danger. He loved being in the thick of things, accompanying marines on missions through the jungles of the Mekong Delta, flying in an American "Skyraider" on a bombing mission over the Camau Peninsula--supposedly a Viet Cong outpost:
As we flew over the target it looked to me very much as any normal normal village would look: on the edge of a river, sampans and fish nets in the water. It was a peaceful scene. Major Carson put our plane into a steep dive. I could see the napalm bombs dropping from the wings. The big bombs first . . . The first pass had a one-two effect. The napalm was expected to force the people--fearing the heat and burning--out into the open. Then the second place was to move in with heavy fragmentation bombs to hit whatever--or whomever--had rushed out into the open. . .Fall stepped on a land mine during an ill-advised fifth visit to Vietnam in 1967. He was married by this time, with three young daughters, the youngest an infant. He had lost one kidney to an infection and the other one was severely damaged, requiring thrice-daily doses of medication.
We came down low, flying very fast, and I could see some of the villagers trying to head away from the burning shore in their sampans. The village was burning fiercely. I will never forget the sight of the fishing nets in flame, covered with burning, jellied gasoline. Behind me I could hear--even through my padded helmet--the roar of the plane's 20-millimeter cannon as we flew away.
There were probably between 1,000 and 1,500 people living in the fishing village we attacked. It is difficult to estimate how many were killed. It is equally difficult to judge if there actually were any Viet Cong in the village and if so, if any were killed.
He taught his students at Howard University to be critical of the government's claims and schooled a generation of war reporters on the realities of the conflict from his home in Washington. Walter Cronkite, Daniel Ellsberg, David Halberstam, Charley Mohr, and Peter Arnett are just some of the journalists who consulted him. Senators Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, and Frank Church were frequent visitors as well. He was performing a vital function right where he was, but Fall felt the need to go back, time after time.
In a letter he'd written to his wife Dorothy on Christmas Eve, 1966, obviously intending to put himself in harm's way yet again, he portrayed himself in a self-sacrificial light:
Darling,This book is his widow's attempt, some forty years after the fact, to honor his life and make sense of his pointless death. As a chronicle, it reads well, interweaving history with Bernard's life and work. I admire the man for the strength of his will and the clarity of his perception. He was driven not by self-righteousness, but by the passion to get things right, to find the truth.
You will see this only if anything has happened. I want you to know that I loved you and the children terribly much and was proud of you.
If I assumed the risks I did in this incredibly stupid and brutal war, I did so because somebody had to be a witness to what was happening. I hope that those poor blind men who direct America's policies will awaken to the real facts before it is too late. In that case, whatever happened to me will not have happened in vain. I know that you will be thinking of me as I will think of you--no matter where I will be.
Love,
Bernard
But he had his demons and Dorothy is still haunted by her failure to help him exorcise them. Her narrative is filled with self-recrimination. After a lengthy quotation from one of his letters to her, an exhilarating (to him) account of some death-defying raid he made more or less on a lark, she attempts to parse her her thoughts at the time:
Is this crazy or what? He has to do this to feel great? What was I thinking? Was I joining him in saving the world? Was his mission to warn the country more important than his children and me? Was I so without backbone that he and I were ready to sacrifice ourselves for this insane war that he knew we could never win? Or was it his search for the camaraderie, for the last hurrah? He must be thinking that if he were to die soon anyway, why not in the thrill of battle?Christian Parenti reviewed Dorothy Fall's memoir for The Nation in 2007, as the Iraq surge was getting underway. Fall's ghost, he commented ruefully, haunts us today:
The cult of war-oriented experiential knowledge is back. Fall’s epistemology placed great importance on seeing one’s subject up close. “You cannot keep up your convictions if you don’t base them on things that you have witnessed for yourself,” Fall said, explaining why he kept returning to Vietnam.Parenti raises doubts about the motivations of embedded journalists--the "flâneurs in hell," as he nicely terms them--who cover wars in the Bernard Fall tradition, doubts that go well beyond Dorothy's guilty musing.
. . .it is not simply knowledge that is gained in a war zone but experience, and it can be quite nasty. The typically male lust to watch war is not always so noble as the “truth-telling witness” metaphor would suggest. Nor is the flâneur in hell simply in it for the adrenaline. The ugly fact is that for many Western reporters watching war often involves a somewhat sadistic thrill.I appreciate Parenti's concern, given the context in which he was writing about Fall's exploits. His review is one of the most thought-provoking pieces I've read on the lessons of Vietnam for the current day, but Dorothy Fall's memoir deserves to be read for its own sake, for the insights it provides into a troubled man's quest for a heroic death.
Even as one sympathizes with the civilians who are killed and maimed and trapped in the war zone, one also tends to identify with the killers, rapists and arsonists–they are very frequently one’s hosts, or at least one’s most sought-after sources and protectors.
Fall in Vietnam
March 9, 2019
My rating on this book is more a reflection that there was little that was new, and that what was new to me was on the personal side of the author Mrs. Dorothy Fall. I have been quietly to the grave site on occasion of Dr. Bernard Fall at the Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington D.C. He was the expert that neither JFK nor LBJ would consult – his books were most normally read by Soldiers and Marines at the rank of Colonel and below before or during their deployment to the Republic of Vietnam (RVN.)
This book is a respectful and courteous reminder for the Fall Family of the husband and father that a wonderful wife and three lovely daughters lost on that fateful day on 21 February 1967; ironically, he would die on the “Street Without Joy.” There are parts to this book that I did not care for; but, believe those parts should be left out of this review for the respect of the Fall Family.
The definitive work on Dr. Fall is yet to be written and would be a monumental task given the extent of his life from being born in Austria. He became a French citizen and fought as a teen with the FFI; he considered himself French more so than Jewish due to a betrayal of his parents to the Nazi’s by what he determined could have been his own race of people.
This book is a respectful and courteous reminder for the Fall Family of the husband and father that a wonderful wife and three lovely daughters lost on that fateful day on 21 February 1967; ironically, he would die on the “Street Without Joy.” There are parts to this book that I did not care for; but, believe those parts should be left out of this review for the respect of the Fall Family.
The definitive work on Dr. Fall is yet to be written and would be a monumental task given the extent of his life from being born in Austria. He became a French citizen and fought as a teen with the FFI; he considered himself French more so than Jewish due to a betrayal of his parents to the Nazi’s by what he determined could have been his own race of people.
July 30, 2022
Bernard Fall was more than a soldier scholar. He understood the futility of the US role in Vietnam but he still accompanied the soldiers on missions instead of protesting within the safe confines of the United States. He was persecuted by the US government for expressing his views.
His wife narrates his life in an easy-to-read manner. After reading all of Bernard Fall's book this book puts his life and adventures into perspective. It is a different perspective that puts Bernard Fall who not only talks the talk but walks the walk.
His wife narrates his life in an easy-to-read manner. After reading all of Bernard Fall's book this book puts his life and adventures into perspective. It is a different perspective that puts Bernard Fall who not only talks the talk but walks the walk.
February 27, 2024
“I’ve never taken the easy way out in my life and I'm not going to start at 26,” wrote Bernard Fall, explaining his decision to conduct field research in Vietnam, pursuant to his graduate studies at Syracuse University. Numerous books have been written about the Vietnam War, but only a small number are truly important.Bernard Fall wrote two of those books, Street Without Joy and Hell in a Very Small Place, which chronicle the French military experience in Indochina and examine the disaster at Dien Bien Phu, respectively. Fall also wrote five other significant books and over 250 articles about Southeast Asia.
Fall died in Vietnam in February 1967, while accompanying a patrol with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, the victim of a VC landmine.
Now his widow, Dorothy, has written the first detailed account of his life. In “Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar, “ Mrs. Fall gives us a touching portrait of the man and the scholar. Bernard Fall was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1926; the family moved to France in 1938, following the Anschluss. Subsequently, Fall’s father was killed by the Gestapo, and his mother died in Auschwitz.
Bernard joined the French Resistance at the age of 15, later joining the French Forces of the Interior, and then the regular French army. By the time the war was over he had fought in numerous guerrilla actions and experienced several conventional engagements.
Following the war, Fall worked as a translator and researcher for the Office of the Chief Counsel at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals. In 1951 he won a Fulbright fellowship to study in the United States, eventually earning his Ph.D. at Syracuse University.
Although by the early 1960s he was regarded as the West’s leading expert on Vietnam, Fall was not appreciated by the American political establishment. As a realist, his opinions were discounted. He pointed out that the United States would not fail militarily in Vietnam, but he noted that Vietnam was a political conflict. In 1965, Fall wrote, “ I can see the means only too clearly. But I cannot say that I have found anyone who seems to have a clear idea of the end…” Due to his status and his dissent,” Attorney General Robert Kennedy signed an order to surveil and wiretap Mr. Fall. Despite that he was persona non grata, Fall was welcomed as lecturer at a number of U.S. military schools.
Bernard Fall’s criticisms of first French and then American policy in Vietnam were not driven by a political agenda. He understood the soldiers who fought, and as a scholar he accompanied them in the field, sharing their dangers, often carrying a weapon.
Dorothy Fall could not understand why her husband made such choices. But, as those who have seen combat know, Karl Marlantes was correct, "Combat is the crack cocaine of all excitement highs-with crack cocaine costs." Thucydides admonished, however, "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
Fall died in Vietnam in February 1967, while accompanying a patrol with the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, the victim of a VC landmine.
Now his widow, Dorothy, has written the first detailed account of his life. In “Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar, “ Mrs. Fall gives us a touching portrait of the man and the scholar. Bernard Fall was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, in 1926; the family moved to France in 1938, following the Anschluss. Subsequently, Fall’s father was killed by the Gestapo, and his mother died in Auschwitz.
Bernard joined the French Resistance at the age of 15, later joining the French Forces of the Interior, and then the regular French army. By the time the war was over he had fought in numerous guerrilla actions and experienced several conventional engagements.
Following the war, Fall worked as a translator and researcher for the Office of the Chief Counsel at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals. In 1951 he won a Fulbright fellowship to study in the United States, eventually earning his Ph.D. at Syracuse University.
Although by the early 1960s he was regarded as the West’s leading expert on Vietnam, Fall was not appreciated by the American political establishment. As a realist, his opinions were discounted. He pointed out that the United States would not fail militarily in Vietnam, but he noted that Vietnam was a political conflict. In 1965, Fall wrote, “ I can see the means only too clearly. But I cannot say that I have found anyone who seems to have a clear idea of the end…” Due to his status and his dissent,” Attorney General Robert Kennedy signed an order to surveil and wiretap Mr. Fall. Despite that he was persona non grata, Fall was welcomed as lecturer at a number of U.S. military schools.
Bernard Fall’s criticisms of first French and then American policy in Vietnam were not driven by a political agenda. He understood the soldiers who fought, and as a scholar he accompanied them in the field, sharing their dangers, often carrying a weapon.
Dorothy Fall could not understand why her husband made such choices. But, as those who have seen combat know, Karl Marlantes was correct, "Combat is the crack cocaine of all excitement highs-with crack cocaine costs." Thucydides admonished, however, "The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
May 23, 2017
A gut wrenching story told from the point of view of the wife of the late journalist. Bernard Fall was French/American and he was the ideal person to report on Viet Nam during the days when the Viet Minh were trying to throw the French out of their country, and then during the early days of American involvement. In one fell swoop Dorothy Fall reminds us what those years were like- both on the ground in Viet Nam and on American soil. We also understand the impossible conundrum of being married to a man who lived for his work, and was constantly in mortal danger.
Read
September 25, 2024Excellent biography of one of the best writers/analysts of the early Vietnam war by his wife.
January 11, 2025
Pretty good book on Bernard Fall and his personal life. Nothing groundbreaking if you’re familiar with his work but interesting to see the side from family
August 2, 2013
This is a very personal biography written by Fall's wife.Although it has its failings as a biography it is a fascinating piece of work that provides some insight into the character of this remarkable man. There is no doubt that he was the pre eminent scholar on Vietnam during his life and his analysis and opinions on the war as in progressed through the French and later the American manifestations were prescient' absolutely spot on.
Probably more fascinating still than Fall himself in this book is the exposure of the American attitude and treatment of this man who, had he been listened to by decision makers may have saved America from one of the greatest tragedies of its history. However that was not to be. The arrogance of "the best and brightest"including McNamara (who Fall regarded with pity and disdain) and the kingpins at the White house had their own agenda, mostly self serving. Combine the egos, that arrogance and the influence of the Vietnam lobby and the rabid anti communist fringe and there was no way anyone who was putting out a contrary message was going to be heeded. Although Fall was being sought regularly by American military people for his views and his analysis. He was effectively isolated by the Hawks and never got his 15 minutes in front of the President where it might have mattered.
Instead in typical style he was hounded by the FBI and slandered constantly in an effort to discredit him as a communist sympathizer (which he was not),though that was never quite achieved in the face of his scholarship and his deep understanding of the Vietnamese people and the war they were fighting. He knew what was going on and he refused to be snowed bythe system of deceit and lies that was the bulwark of the hawk camp,the vested interests prepared to serve their purposes at any cost.
Fall influenced some of the principal actors in the tragedy and was highly regarded by those who were on the front line. The remarkable thing is that the Americans learned nothing from the entire exercise, in the same arrogance and blind belief in their monopoly on "God' and what is right and the invincibility of their force of arms they charged into Iraq and Afghanistan and created yet another series of bungled enterprises that have cost them blood and treasure beyond account to no useful purpose.
The greatest liability the Americans carry is this blind self belief that is based essentially on their own propaganda. This somehow renders them incapable of intelligent reason when it comes to any matter that challenges their deeply held view of their rightness, always somehow blessed by God. We have seen almost a century of one disaster after another that when analysed is actually inimical to those values enshrined in their oft quoted Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Probably more fascinating still than Fall himself in this book is the exposure of the American attitude and treatment of this man who, had he been listened to by decision makers may have saved America from one of the greatest tragedies of its history. However that was not to be. The arrogance of "the best and brightest"including McNamara (who Fall regarded with pity and disdain) and the kingpins at the White house had their own agenda, mostly self serving. Combine the egos, that arrogance and the influence of the Vietnam lobby and the rabid anti communist fringe and there was no way anyone who was putting out a contrary message was going to be heeded. Although Fall was being sought regularly by American military people for his views and his analysis. He was effectively isolated by the Hawks and never got his 15 minutes in front of the President where it might have mattered.
Instead in typical style he was hounded by the FBI and slandered constantly in an effort to discredit him as a communist sympathizer (which he was not),though that was never quite achieved in the face of his scholarship and his deep understanding of the Vietnamese people and the war they were fighting. He knew what was going on and he refused to be snowed bythe system of deceit and lies that was the bulwark of the hawk camp,the vested interests prepared to serve their purposes at any cost.
Fall influenced some of the principal actors in the tragedy and was highly regarded by those who were on the front line. The remarkable thing is that the Americans learned nothing from the entire exercise, in the same arrogance and blind belief in their monopoly on "God' and what is right and the invincibility of their force of arms they charged into Iraq and Afghanistan and created yet another series of bungled enterprises that have cost them blood and treasure beyond account to no useful purpose.
The greatest liability the Americans carry is this blind self belief that is based essentially on their own propaganda. This somehow renders them incapable of intelligent reason when it comes to any matter that challenges their deeply held view of their rightness, always somehow blessed by God. We have seen almost a century of one disaster after another that when analysed is actually inimical to those values enshrined in their oft quoted Bill of Rights and Constitution.
March 1, 2010
This is a great book for anyone interested in the Vietnam War. Fall jewish, and French, and served in the US military. His parents died in German concentration camps and he fought the Nazi's in the French Resistance. It is a great book because it describes how America became involved in the former 'French Colony, "Vietnam" and describes the voices of warning from the very start.
This book also frames the north Vietnamese resistance in an anti-colonial freedom fighter way as opposed to the later for doctrinal Communist regime which came to be.
This book also frames the north Vietnamese resistance in an anti-colonial freedom fighter way as opposed to the later for doctrinal Communist regime which came to be.
June 16, 2007
Extraordinary account of the life and achievments of historian-journalist Bernard Fall, as told lovingly by his widow, Dorothy Fall.
Bernard was an expert on Indochina, especially Viet Nam; and through his writings and activism, warned against U.S. involvement in that region during the 1960's -- a chilling forecast of what has become the nation's Iraqi tragedy.
Bernard was an expert on Indochina, especially Viet Nam; and through his writings and activism, warned against U.S. involvement in that region during the 1960's -- a chilling forecast of what has become the nation's Iraqi tragedy.
May 28, 2008
Our book clubs April selection. The author is attending.
August 20, 2008
Sort of boring, actually. Read "Hell in a Very Small Place" and "Street Without Joy" instead, or first, at least.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews