Embers Of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

The struggle for Vietnam occupies a central place in the history of the twentieth century. Fought over a period of three decades, the conflict drew in all the world’s powers and saw two of them—first France, then the United States—attempt to subdue the revolutionary Vietnamese forces. For France, the defeat marked the effective end of her colonial empire, while for America the war left a gaping wound in the body politic that remains open to this day.
 
How did it happen? Tapping into newly accessible diplomatic archives in several nations and making full use of the published literature, distinguished scholar Fredrik Logevall traces the path that led two Western nations to lose their way in Vietnam. Embers of War opens in 1919 at the Versailles Peace Conference, where a young Ho Chi Minh delivers a petition for Vietnamese independence to President Woodrow Wilson. It concludes in 1959, with a Viet Cong ambush on a U.S. outpost outside Saigon and the deaths of two American officers whose names would be the first to be carved into the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In between come years of political, military, and diplomatic maneuvering and miscalculation, as leaders on all sides embark on a series of stumbles that makes an eminently avoidable struggle a bloody and interminable reality.
 
Logevall takes us inside the councils of war—and gives us a seat at the conference tables where peace talks founder. He brings to life the bloodiest battles of France’s final years in Indochina—and shows how from an early point, a succession of American leaders made disastrous policy choices that put America on its own collision course with history: Harry Truman’s fateful decision to reverse Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policy and acknowledge France’s right to return to Indochina after World War II; Dwight Eisenhower’s strenuous efforts to keep Paris in the fight and his escalation of U.S. involvement in the aftermath of the humiliating French defeat at Dien Bien Phu; and the curious turnaround in Senator John F. Kennedy’s thinking that would lead him as president to expand that commitment, despite his publicly stated misgivings about Western intervention in Southeast Asia.
 
An epic story of wasted opportunities and tragic miscalculations, featuring an extraordinary cast of larger-than-life characters, Embers of War delves deep into the historical record to provide hard answers to the unanswered questions surrounding the demise of one Western power in Vietnam and the arrival of another. This book will become the definitive chronicle of the struggle’s origins for years to come.

Advance praise for Embers of War
 
“Fredrik Logevall has gleaned from American, French, and Vietnamese sources a splendid account of France’s nine-year war in Indochina and the story of how the American statesmen of the period allowed this country to be drawn into the quagmire.”—Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright Shining Lie, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
 
“Fredrik Logevall is a wonderful writer and historian. In his new book on the origins of the American war in Vietnam, he gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the French war and its aftermath, from the perspectives of the French, the Vietnamese, and the Americans. Using previously untapped sources and a deep knowledge of diplomatic history, Logevall shows to devastating effect how America found itself on the road to Vietnam.”—Frances FitzGerald, author of Fire in the Lake, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, American History, Asia, Military History, Politics

864 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 21, 2012

About the author

Fredrik Logevall is a Swedish-American historian and educator at Harvard University, where he is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is a specialist in U.S. politics and foreign policy. Logevall was previously the Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University, where he also served as vice provost and as director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. His most recent book, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (2020), won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Logevall’s essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, Daily Beast, and Foreign Affairs, among other publications.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Few topics in contemporary history have been more studied and analyzed and debated more than the Vietnam War. The long and bloody struggle, which killed in excess of three million Vietnamese and wreaked destruction on huge portions of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, has inspired a vast outpouring of books, articles, television documentaries, and Hollywood movies, as well as scholarly conferences and college courses…Yet remarkably, we still do not have a full-fledged international account of how the whole saga began, a book that takes us from the end of World War I, when the future of the European colonial empires still seemed secure, through World War II and then the Franco-Viet Minh War and its dramatic climax, to the fateful American decision to build up and defend South Vietnam. [This] is an attempt at such a history. It is the story of one Western power’s demise in Indochina and the arrival of another, of a revolutionary army’s stunning victory in 1954 in the face of immense challenges, and of the failure of that victory to bring lasting peace to Vietnam…”
- Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam


Given that history is ever flowing, starting points and endpoints are often arbitrary. Did the American Civil War begin at Fort Sumter, or when the first enslaved African arrived on America’s shores? Did the Second World War begin with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, or in the shambles of Versailles at the close of the First World War? One has to take a bit of care in deciding when a particular story starts, for the chain of predicate events can be long.

When it comes to America’s war in Vietnam, the start date is especially hazy. No declaration of war ever occurred, and the United States’s involvement grew in fitful increments. One can look to the Gulf of Tonkin incident as a major turning point, but Americans were dying in Vietnam before that.

In any event, one thing is clear: the whole mess started with the French. This is the tale told in Fredrik Logevall’s epic, highly-readable, award-winning Embers of War.

***

Logevall begins Embers of War with a 1919-set prologue, where a young, slight Vietnamese leader arrives in Paris to plead his nation’s case before the victorious allies of World War I. What Ho Chi Minh failed to recognize, unfortunately, was that Woodrow Wilson’s doctrine of self-determination had only the narrowest application, and that the subject peoples of the world would have to sit quietly while the great powers carved up the world into various clients, colonies, and mandates.

After Ho failed to find an audience, he settled in with the French Left, founding a journal, writing articles for socialist publications, and even penning a play. It was during this time that Ho drifted from Wilson and his empty sentiments, and into the orbit of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

As Logevall points out, Ho Chi Minh was both a communist and a nationalist, but his defining trait seems to have been pragmatism. Even after the disintegration of “the Wilsonian moment,” Ho did not give up entirely on the United States. Instead, he bided his time.

***

Following this prologue, Embers of War jumps to the Second World War. After a mere six weeks of battle, France ignominiously surrendered to Nazi Germany. At this point, part of France was occupied, while Vichy France maintained putative independence. Bewilderingly clinging to a conception of itself as an imperial force, Vichy continued to administer Vietnam, then referred to as Indochina, and divided into the regions of Cochin China (in the south), Annam (in the center), and Tonkin (in the north).

Vichy has become a synonym for collaboration in the pejorative sense, and for good reason. It worked intensely with Germany, selling out others to save themselves. In Southeast Asia, that teamwork extended to Japan, who jointly administered Indochina with the French until 1945. With the war turning against the Axis powers – and France looking to change sides, again – the Japanese ousted the Gallic colonists. The low point of this transition came via a terrible famine. According to Logevall, high-end estimates put fatalities in the area of three million, over the course of only five months. This death toll approaches that of the long war between the United States and Vietnam.

***

As Logevall astutely points out, France’s loss at the hands of Japan discredited them in the eyes of the Vietnamese. Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese nationalists believed this to be a historical turning point for their embattled and perpetually-occupied nation. For a while, they were encouraged by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strong anti-colonial position, his dislike of Charles de Gaulle, and his attitude of “unremitting hostility” toward the French.

In Logevall’s telling, much balanced on Roosevelt’s health. For a time, he insisted on a “trusteeship” of Vietnam; the U.S. parachuted supplies and advisers into Vietnam; and Ho Chi Minh actively embraced the words of Thomas Jefferson in formulating his appeal. Though he later turned into one of America’s most formidable adversaries, in 1944-45, Ho Chi Minh turned to America for help. This is an excruciatingly frustrating point. I always tell my kids: Never pass up a chance to make a friend. Unfortunately, the motto of the United States at this important juncture happened to be: He’s a communist – run!

Franklin Roosevelt’s rapidly occluding arteries diminished his formidable powers, and in the closing months of his life, his faculties slipped, weakening his stance. Then he died, the Second World War ended, and the West’s existential concerns shifted toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. President Harry Truman – who had not been privy to Roosevelt’s thinking – suddenly found the specter of worldwide communism to be the preeminent threat. From this moment, U.S. foreign policy – including the attendant ethical compromises – directed itself against the spread of Soviet-dominated communism. This meant placating the French.

With his assurances to de Gaulle in Washington, Truman had indicated the course his administration would follow on Indochina, at least in the short term. Washington would not act to prevent a French return to Indochina. There were voices in the State Department who objected to this policy, who believed firmly that the United States had to stand for change, for a new order of things, a decolonization of the international system, but they had lost out to those in Washington who stood, in effect, for the old order of things, and who moreover had their eyes firmly fixed on Soviet moves in postwar Europe…In historical terms, it was a monumental decision by Truman, and like so many that U.S. presidents would make in the decades to come, it had little to do with Vietnam herself – it was all about American priorities on the world stage…

With American acquiescence, British support, and pursuant to de Gaulle’s fervent desires, the French retook control of Indochina, as though nothing had happened.

***

The bulk of Embers of War concerns France’s eight-year struggle against the Viet Minh, the name of Ho Chi Minh’s independence movement. The Viet Minh had many advantages, including fighting for their country in their country. Nevertheless, victory did not come easily or without cost.

This is not a military history, but Logevall does a more-than-credible job discussing the strategic and tactical aspects of the war. The climax came at Dien Bien Phu, where the French established a fortified airbase in a distant valley, in order to encourage an open battle with the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh obliged, and after seven weeks, forced the French forces – mostly colonial troops – to surrender.

***

It is during the siege of Dien Bien Phu that the United States in general, and the Dwight Eisenhower administration in particular, began to tap dance toward ultimate disaster. During the fight, American supplies were dropped by American planes, sometimes with American pilots. The French begged for more direction intervention. Airstrikes by the U.S. were strongly considered. The use of atomic weapons was discussed. In short, Logevall asserts that President Eisenhower – encouraged by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles – came close to beginning “the Vietnam War” in 1954.

***

In due course, the United States decided not to send in the troops. But they played a huge role in the Geneva Accords of 1954, an intense series of diplomatic sessions that involved the French, Viet Minh, China, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Eventually, this resulted in the partitioning of Indochina into North and South Vietnam, the setting of an International Control Commission, the removal of French troops, and general elections within two years.

Logevall covers this byzantine sequence in incredible detail. He also discusses the aftermath, in which Ngo Dinh Diem took control in the South; the United States found itself propping him up; and the elections required by treaty – and which would’ve ended in a communist electoral victory – were cancelled.

***

Embers of War is a truly massive book – just over 700 pages of text – and has an impressive scope. More than that, it is brilliantly written. It does a fine job with the set pieces – such as the aforementioned battle of Dien Bien Phu – and in making sense of the motivations of all sides. Nothing about Indochina/Vietnam is entirely without controversy, but Logevall is upfront in his handling of the evidence, and provides explanations for his conclusions. Beyond that, he does an excellent job sketching out the characters of a huge cast, including Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Ngo Dinh Diem; China’s Zhou Enlai; Great Britain’s Anthony Eden; and France’s General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and Pierre Mendes France.

If awards are your thing, Embers of War has them. In 2013, for example, it won the Pulitzer Prize for history. Meanwhile, Logevall has an impressive pedigree, including a Ph.D. from Yale, past professorships at the University of California and Cornell, and a position at Harvard. He is also from Sweden, giving him a welcome emotional neutrality.

***

Because of its position as America’s worse foreign policy blunder – which is saying something – the origins of the American-Vietnamese War have been vigorously and voluminously debated. Baked into these discussions are numerous counterfactuals, what Winston Churchill once referred to as “the terrible ifs.” Much of the discourse has always revolved around John F. Kennedy, and whether – before meeting with a bullet in Dallas – he intended to pull America out of Vietnam entirely. Embers of War broadens the discussion by going back to Ike.

Eisenhower has been praised by some historians for his prudence in keeping the United States out of the Indochina quagmire. But this analysis largely conflates his overall restraint in foreign policy…with his more aggressive approach to crises in the Third World… In 1954, he and Dulles were prepared to intervene directly to save the French position in the Indochina War, and came close to doing so; in the years thereafter, they gambled they could build a new state in southern Vietnam with a mercurial and unproven leader. As the Saigon government skidded and careened down treacherous roads in the late 1950s, Eisenhower, his attention mostly on other foreign policy concerns and his trusted Dulles no longer by his side as of early 1959, ordered no reevaluation, even though an insurgency was under way in South Vietnam and even though Diem continued business as usual, rejecting all calls to enact far-reaching reforms and insisting on framing the problem as primarily military in nature.

To be sure, Logevall does not – and could not – lay all the blame on Eisenhower’s doorstep for the disasters that followed. If America’s Vietnam adventure was a runaway train, there were many, many opportunities to jump off. All the presidents that followed – Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon – refused a timely exit, content to let others absorb tremendous losses in order to shore up their domestic political positions. But before those men could make their mistakes in South Vietnam, it fell to Eisenhower to commit to it in the first place.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is entirely unsurprising that Logevall swept nearly every history award with Embers of War. It is highly readable and incredibly enlightening. Having had a stepdad who was a Vietnam vet, I have become increasingly interested in the history of the war and this book provides a peerless view of the context and origins of the conflict. Each of the primary actors is described in realistic detail. I learned a lot about the country itself of which I was completely ignorant and I was fascinated by the human being Ho Chi Minh who was not the cardboard bad guy that I had been taught. Many of the mistakes that the French made during the Indochina War were repeated in the Vietnam War and have been once again committed in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This book should be read by anyone interested in Southeast Asia and the conflict that came to define a generation in America...and Vietnam.

I keep thinking of this book and would suggest that it is great to follow this one up with Frances FitzGerald's Fire in the Lake.

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tragedy Unpacked

The war in Vietnam was infinitely tragic. What Logevall establishes in his extended history of the conflict is that the tragedy is a cardinal order of infinity greater than is commonly thought. Its origins are deeper and more subtle than the American obsession with Cold War dominance. And its cycle of repetitive error continues to the present day in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. This greater tragedy, it seems to me, is our self-imposed inability as a species to learn from collective experience.

The series of military conflicts in Vietnam is possibly the slowest and most destructive car crash in history. The 35 year war of Vietnamese independence had an almost inevitable trajectory given the diplomatically opportunistic and militarily expedient decisions of virtually everyone involved - the French, Japanese, British, and, most disastrously, the Americans - from 1919 onwards. The only exceptions to opportunism and expediency appear to be policies grounded in intense personal animosity - for example between President Roosevelt, the champion of national self-determination, and Charles de Gaulle with his post-war colonial ambitions.

It was the British, for example, worried about their post-WWII colonies in Southern Asia, who first raised the strategic Domino Theory for the region. Originally rejected by the USA as colonial paranoia, the theory eventually became the dominant rationale for American policy in the region. It was subsequently shown to be total bunk.

Similarly, it was the French who developed the high-tech military strategy of urban control and brutal rural counter-insurgency. This failed strategy was emulated with such horrible but unproductive effect by the Americans for more than a decade. Just as the French became hated as invading terrorists, so also did their American successors.

It was the Japanese who attempted to direct the civil government of Vietnam through a parallel military presence, thus provoking an international reaction leading to global war. America found itself on the brink of yet further global conflict through exactly the same political charade during its military occupation of the country. At least the Japanese recognised the hollowness of the regime they supported; whereas the US lived happily inside its own fiction.

The practical problem with opportunism and expediency is that the world changes even while computation is underway. The calculus used to weigh advantages and disadvantages thus becomes obsolete quickly. Meanwhile one is stuck with the consequences of irrelevant calculations. The world of international relations is simply too complicated to navigate without some reasonably accurate moral compass. America, in particular, didn’t even have an indication of true North as it attempted to continuously calibrate and re-calibrate its position.

The biggest player in post-war Vietnam, France, at least knew what it wanted: the re-acquisition of its former colonies. The USA, however, simultaneously wanted de-colonisation, popular support in France lest it veer to the Left domestically, and neutralisation of any potential Communist influence in Vietnam. These objectives were mutually incompatible and of constantly shifting priority. This situation, therefore, led to progressive policy failures throughout the critical period of 1945-1949. These failures continued and ramified for the next quarter century as the calculus of American advantage became even more complex and more obscure.

I find myself searching for a metaphor which can make sense of the historical detail of Logevall’s highly readable account. It seems to me that it has been the misfortune of the people of Indochina to have been considered by others as a commercial ‘asset’ for most of the 20th century. The French, the Japanese, and the Americans all valued this asset differently but shared the view that it was theirs to dispose of as a matter of right. The countries of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia constituted a collection of stocks - of rubber, of rice, of oil, and of productive people - to be developed, protected, educated, and if necessary written-off if they failed to ‘make the numbers.’ The traditional rationale of the mission civilisatrice and strategy of a politique de force were consistently applied by every invader.

For the Vietminh and latterly the Viet Cong and the NVA, Vietnam was not an asset but an obligation. This is more accurate, I think, than the facile attribution of nationalism and its connotations to the various parties. This attitude is made clear by the consistent behaviour of its leaders, particularly Ho and Giap, who spent their entire adult lives unswervingly committed to one outcome: the political independence of Vietnam, not just from France but also from China, the Soviet Union and America. This attitude clearly distinguished them from other so-called nationalists like Bao Dai and the Diems who had very much of an ‘asset-view’ of their own country.

The obligation felt by Ho and Giap was hardly ideological - Ho’s politics were pragmatic in the extreme. He sought alliance with America and reasonable compromise with France during most of the 1940’s. Nor was the obligation nationalistic in the sense that it touted the superiority of Vietnamese culture or language. It was an obligation which insisted on the unity of the three former French colonies of Cochin China, Amman, and Tonkin because they were historically one nation, separated for the convenience of colonial administration. If anything the culture that Ho was promoting was, inevitably given his education and experience, a sort of cosmopolitan Francophile socialism.

I am not competent to comment on the historical detail of Logevall’s narrative. What I can testify to, however, is its power in re-framing the origins of the war in a way I have not before encountered. It is also gripping, and often surprising. Highly recommended.

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only thing worse than a book that disappoints is a long book whose last 100-200 pages disappoint.

I was impressed by EMBERS OF WAR at first. It is difficult for me to even imagine how much effort had gone into this sweeping tale of the First Indochina War, the tumultuous Geneva conference, and the subsequent involvement of the Eisenhower administration in South Vietnam. Fredrik Logevall has somehow managed to combine compelling, graceful storytelling with incredibly detailed chronicling of events and insightful analysis. And there are maps and photos included! I was so happy to read a book that proved my point of view on the Franco-Vietnamese conflict that I even let a major problem I had with Logevall's work slide. 

Now that I have finished the book and – alas – changed my opinion of it, I cannot ignore it anymore.

Throughout his narrative, Frederik Logevall mentions many curious details that I have not encountered in other works. This could be commendable if the author supported his claims with evidence. Instead, on many occasions, such details are included as a matter of fact, without any sources to prove them. For instance, I was very surprised to find out that General Giap used to be a history teacher. I had not seen this in any of the other books on Dien Bien Phu I have read, so I wanted to know Logevall's source. As it turned out after I checked the notes, he had not provided any proof at all. He credits David G. Marr's book Vietnam 1945, which I have read, in the same paragraph, but Giap's being a history teacher is not mentioned in it – I double-checked. Historical facts are not axioms. They are theorems. Unless proven, they do not hold any value, and as I found out in seventh grade, "Because it is obvious to me that it is so" is not sound proof.

If this had been my only concern, I would have given EMBERS OF WAR four stars. But that was not the case. 

It is funny how once the discussion turns to Ngo Dinh Diem and his regime, everything immediately goes south. I really hoped that Frederik Logevall's reasoning would be well-argumented, but instead, his treatment of Diem is unfoundedly hostile. While that his claims are shallow is less obvious than in most other works, and it took me more time to notice, this is so only because he uses truths to prove wrongs.

His thesis is – not surprising – that Ngo Dinh Diem was a ruthless dictator, a kind of modernized but largely ignorant mandarin who could not connect with the people of Vietnam. First of all, that was not true. Diem's background had made him well aware of the complexities of Vietnam and its civil war. After college graduation in 1921, he became a district chief in charge of 225 villages. Despite his youth and inexperience, he proved himself a gifted leader. He successfully combatted guerrilla insurgency in southern villages by infiltrating the Communist ranks, arresting Viet Minh's agents, and re-educating them. According to Diem biographer Geoffrey Shaw, the young colonial official thoroughly studied Marxism and Communism, paying attention to the nuances of Ho Chi Minh's Vietnamese Communism, thus becoming one of the first Vietnamese officials fully to discern the extent to which the Communists had gained support in the country.” The 1950s North Vietnamese land reform, which was supposed to divide the land of the rich among the poor, was an overwhelming failure. Meanwhile, Diem's achievements in rebuilding the southern half of the country were winning over the ordinary Vietnamese. CIA Saigon Station Chief William Colby called Diem's reforms the total social and economic regeneration of South Vietnam.” He was attuned to the needs of the ordinary Vietnamese, perceptive, and wise. 

Second of all, probably due to lack of arguments in favor of the opposite, Logevall does not even try to prove it. Instead, he simply switches to arguing for something else – something that is correct. He argues that American policy-makers made many mistakes in South Vietnam, so the state-building there never worked, and proceeds to enumerate those mistakes.

He points out, correctly, that the US military advisers in Vietnam misjudged the Viet Minh completely and focused on preparing for a large-scale invasion from the north instead of eradicating the guerrillas from the countryside. He observes that the American government made constant attempts to control all decisions Diem made and thus undermined his legitimacy by fostering the Communist "America-Diem" propaganda. He mentions that the Vietnam lobby and the news media outdid themselves in portraying South Vietnam's Prime Minister as a miracle man who could do no wrong, which again contributed to the eventual disappointment. And it is also undeniably true that the Americans in Vietnam acted like the next colonial power to impose itself on the long-suffering Vietnamese. 

Logevall connects this with his initial thesis so skillfully that a more inexperienced reader will surely finish the book with the understanding that all of the aforementioned was Diem's fault. 

But if we look closely at the accusations the author levels, none of the aforementioned is Diem's fault. It is the fault of American policy-makers and military men who went to Vietnam abysmally ignorant of the situation there. Diem, on the other hand, did everything he could to prevent the recipes for disasters his superpower ally was forcing on him. As a non-Communist nationalist prioritizing his country's interests, he understood that not all recommendations Saigon received from its American advisers were rational and applicable to Vietnam.

What's more, Frederik Logevall's shallow reasoning disappointed me further. He criticizes Ngo Dinh Diem for his efforts to prevent the "free", "democratic" elections that should have taken place in 1956 in Vietnam to determine who would rule afterwards – Ho Chi Minh or Ngo Dinh Diem. Logevall sneers at Diem because the Prime Minister thought elections could not take place unless North Vietnam grants fundamental freedoms and democratic institutions to the people. "Since — according to the time-honored American line — no one could ever vote for a Communist regime of his own free will (Communism being wholly divorced from the mainstream of normal human beliefs), these conditions must not yet exist in Vietnam," writes the author sarcastically. 

Well, I cannot help but wonder whether Frederik Logevall has ever heard of the dreaded manifestation of Communism– GULAG – or, better yet, tried to live in Stalin's Soviet Union. I doubt that someone who has would classify Communism among "normal human beliefs." Ngo Dinh Diem, on the other hand, had had the opportunity to observe first-hand the rise of the Viet Minh, the brutal persecution of Catholics by Hanoi, and the atrocities committed by Communist guerrillas in South Vietnamese villages. He fully understood what would happen to his country if Ho Chi Minh won the election – and the possibility that he would win it was very real. As Graham Greene's character points out in his renowned novel The Quiet American, after working in the rice fields the whole day, the Vietnamese peasant did not think about Marxism-Leninism and democracy in his hut. Instead, he pondered whether he would have enough food for his family; whether the harvest would be good; whether he would manage to pay the outrageous taxes. The Vietnamese peasant was not going to fight for ideology, but he was going to fight for whoever offers him a better deal. At the time, the Communists were offering a tempting deal. Maybe it was not an achievable one; maybe they were lying. But the rural population believed them because it was not aware of the evil essence of a Communist state. 

Ngo Dinh Diem understood this very well, so he sought to save the people from themselves. That is why he obstructed the elections, not because he was a savage, cunning despot. 

What a disappointment really. I expected so much from EMBERS OF WAR. It would have been such a great read for me if not for the last few chapters devoted to discrediting Ngo Dinh Diem. I wish I could recommend this book, but it may seriously mislead those readers who have not studied the Diem regime in-depth. The chapters focusing on the post-WWII Franco-Vietnamese, Franco-British, and Franco-American relations, the battle of Dien Bien Phu, and Operation Vulture are detailed, compelling, and insightful, though, as are those analyzing the Eisenhower administration's negligence toward Vietnam and the problems it led to, so anyone interested should take a look at them.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant. Meticulously researched and well-told. As fine a work of historical scholarship as I have ever read.

This book covers Vietnam from 1940 to 1959, so it doesn't really address the pathological United States escalation that followed. But there's enough folly anyhow. And this presents the necessary groundwork for what happened afterwards.

I started making a mental note every time an opportunity presented itself in the historical record for someone - anyone - to say whoa and that maybe that voice of reason could have prevented the War(s). But the opportunities were too numerous to count. Yet they did allow for some reflection.

It seems so simple in retrospect. Communism was not monolithic. Dominoes did not fall. And Royal Caribbean will take you there.

There were the usual causes: colonialism, money, politics. And racism too.

Truman. Acheson. Dulles. Eisenhower. Kennedy. Mansfield. Men in nice three-piece suits, well-educated and well-connected. And all wrong. Bullies who were bullied.

Eisenhower, not worse than the rest, loomed larger, at least for me. He was the President for eight years of the story, after all. But, one, he more than the rest should have known better; and, two, he could have politically survived the leaving. And that saddened me. So, I ambled down to the downstairs library where I have a copy of Waging Peace, Eisenhower's disingenuously titled account of his second term as President. I picked it up, surprised that 700-plus pages could feel so light. I checked the glossary. Premier Diem isn't even listed, and there were only a few scant entries for "Vietnam". But I checked them out. And saw this: Complicating the problem was the difficulty of determining, with reasonable accuracy, what was going on in this mysterious Asian land.

So, no wonder.

[Michael Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good." —Gabriel García Márquez

Logevall explains who was the basis of the Alden Pyle character in "The Quiet American"

http://www.viet-studies.com/kinhte/Lo...

It's all here in this book, why getting entrenched in a war in Vietnam would never succeed. The French tried everything that the Americans would eventually try. But, of course, we thought we knew better. By 1965, U.S. officials finally understood the war was unwinnable. But we hung on and on in order to save face, even as so many continued to senselessly die. Hubris at its worse.

In the end, America would be in the same position as when the French left and Indochina went back to its civil war, North Vietnam vs South.

As the botched evacuation of Saigon was underway in 1975, this was the last word.....

“This will be the final message from Saigon station,” CIA Chief Thomas Polgar wrote in a clipped, telegraphic style. “It has been a long fight and we have lost. . . . Those who fail to learn from history are forced to repeat it. Let us hope that we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have learned our lesson. Saigon signing off.”

[Brett C · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For the better part of twenty years, it would be the mantra of American administrations on Vietnam: Don't look back; keep pressing ahead." pg. 217

This book did a deep-dive explanation, anaylsis, and history lesson on French Indochina. Fredrik Logevall was able to piece everything together starting with French colonization, occupation by the Japanese, the actions during WW2, and the pressing anticolonial efforts against the French. The narrative heavily encompassed all aspects relative: social, economic, political, military, and international affairs. Embers of War discussed a lot: Charles De Gaulle, Ho Chi Minh, Dien Bien Phu, and the accelerated US involvment during the Eisenhower adminstration "All of Indochina would have to be held, with direct American intrervention if necessary." pg 463

Overall this was a very thorough narrative that explained a tremendous deal. It covered French Indochina from 1940 to America's involvement. I would highly recommend this as a solid opener for this historical account and for military specific history, Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard B. Fall. Thanks!

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

How did America become involved in Viet Nam and why was American policy so dysfunctional? Logevall lays it all out from French colonization in 1873 to 1959 with the killing of the first Americans to later have their names engraved on the Viet Nam War Memorial. He covers Ho Chi Minh’s lifelong nationalism from his attempts to meet President Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 through the decision in 1959 as President of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam to help the Viet Cong in the South.

Logevall points out America’s missed opportunity to engage Ho after WWII when Ho and American OSS agents were friends having fought the Japanese together. Ho saw America give the Philippines its independence and wanted America’s support for Viet Nam’s independence. But France wanted its colony and empire and the Truman administration wanted a stronger France to blunt the advance of communism in Europe. So despite Washington’s objection to colonialism it would not support Ho against France in Viet Nam.

Keeping neutral in the beginning, Truman ultimately succumbed to domestic politics in his decision to support France in 1949. After Truman became the President who lost China, he could not look soft on communism. Anti-communist hysteria was building. American public opinion would be driven by McCarthyism and journals such as the extremely popular “Time” and “Life” which reported the news as the ultra-conservative Henry Luce saw it.

Eisenhower, father of the domino theory, and his rabidly anti-communist Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were also caught in the grips of domestic politics. Having been elected charging Democrats with losing China and starting an unnecessary war in Korea, Eisenhower was caught between a rock and hard place. He could neither get America directly involved militarily nor could he be the President who lost Viet Nam. An indecisive weak foreign policy ensued. While Eisenhower quickly ended the Korean War by negotiating with the Chinese he advised France against negotiating with the Viet Minh, a double standard not lost on the French who were looking for a way out. But France needed American support and heeded Washington’s wishes as Eisenhower provided ever increasing aid to the French in their hopeless war.

Dulles and Eisenhower pursued ineffective policies: Pushing France to stay in the fight but avoiding American military commitments; pressuring incessantly and fruitlessly Eden and Churchill to form an international military coalition to support the French primarily to provide cover for American action; refusing to discuss Viet Nam with the Chinese upon whom Ho was dependent. While Eisenhower and Dulles searched for ways to intervene to prevent French defeat in 1954, the Geneva Peace Conference was held. Dulles treated the conference with disdain; however a new French government dealing with the Chinese speaking for the Vietnamese and with the blessing of the British worked things out. Partition at the seventeenth parallel created North and South Viet Nam. Actually this was quite a face saving result for France given its ignominious defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

The Geneva Accord mandated elections in 1956 to decide who would lead all of Viet Nam. These would not be held. Diem and Dulles would contend that elections could not be fair given the North was dominated by communists. Everyone knew Ho would easily have won a fair election, even if not feasible since both North and South Viet Nam were police states. Diem ruthlessly eliminated any opposition and so did Ho’s North. After the Viet Minh victory thousands were executed in the North and many exiled to work camps. Property was arbitrarily redistributed. Those who objected were dealt with summarily and harshly. Ho condoned the bloodshed.

Diem assumed power in 1955 and Dulles went to work supporting him relying heavily on the opinion of “Asian expert” Senator Mike Mansfield, Diem confidant CIA agent Ed Lansdale and like voices while ignoring those who saw weaknesses in Diem’s insular autocratic style. American public opinion continued to be shaped by Henry Luce’s “Time” and “Life” and other anti-communist media which extolled Diem. Diem being Catholic even had the support of Cardinal Spellman and the Church.

Logevall offers fascinating insight into the writing of Graham Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, and Greene’s experience in Viet Nam. An interesting aside is the plot change in the 1958 Joseph Mankiewicz movie made to assuage pro Diem activist groups. Mankiewics made the Englishman a communist dupe who plans the bombing. In the novel Greene had the American arrange the bombing to help create a “third force”. America was considering a third force strategy at the time the novel was written. Needless to say Greene was very upset by the switch which completely changed the novel’s message.

By 1956 America’s Viet Nam mission was the largest in the world. By 1959 American advisors were accompanying South Vietnamese troops on combat missions even though by this time Diem’s shortcomings were glaring. By November 1963 when both Diem and Kennedy were assassinated there were 16,000 American “advisors” in Viet Nam. Kennedy had found it easier to let Eisenhower’s policy run its course.

Embers of War is very well written, highly readable and important for readers who want to understand how policy was made. It explains why America started down the road to the debacle of the Viet Nam War, the American War as the Vietnamese call it, and why America could never turn back. Logevall also covers the French War in detail and its key battles such as Dien Bien Phu and similarly explains the politics of France’s decisions. There is so much more than I focused on here.

The parallels to later American foreign policy decision processes are striking. It goes like this. Domestic politics shapes foreign policy decisions. Public opinion shapes domestic politics. Public opinion is manipulated by hyperbolic media and entrenched interests that stoke fear offering simplistic, patriotic and self-serving solutions. Thus policy is made to address short term political considerations placating a fearful ill informed electorate. However policy lasts for the long term. It is difficult to change. Far easier to trudge along the path of least resistance than to have to backtrack, admit error, anger supporters or explain something complicated. In the last 60 years of ever more wars the mechanics of policy making has not changed and that doesn’t bode well for the future.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many books and documentaries explore the origins of America's tragic involvement in Vietnam, but few as thoroughly (and damningly) as Fredrik Logevall's Embers of War. Unlike most other historians of the conflict, Logevall successfully adapts a multinational perspective, giving insight into not only American but Vietnamese, French, British and Chinese perspectives on Indochina's "10,000 Day War." Logevall shows France's ill-advised, blundering efforts to reinstate colonial hegemony after WII; the Vietnamese leadership, committed to independence but vacillating between doctrinaire Marxism and pragmatic Non-Aligned Nationalism; the Americans and British, eager to use Indochina as a bulwark against Communism but not yet to intervene themselves.

Logevall's main contribution is to explode many myths about the conflict, from France's growing disillusionment to the roles of the Communist states (China's fall to Communism, Logevall argues, made the war's escalation from colonial conflict to proxy war inevitable) and a rich tradition of Vietnamese nationalism that sustained the Viet Minh, even as Ho Chi Minh and his subordinates clashed over ideology and tactics. In particular, he illustrates Eisenhower's eagerness to use force (whether air raids, ground troops, or most frighteningly atomic weapons) only to be talked down by his British allies, cautious Congressmen and more prudent staff and cabinet members who feared a Third World War. Watching Ike's testy interactions with cautious Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden is richly ironic considering that two years later, their positions would be inverted during the Suez Crisis. Even so, Eisenhower listened to reason and pulled the plug before Indochina became another Korea. His successors (Kennedy and Johnson, who are shown swallowing private doubts to mouth Domino Theory platitudes while embracing Ngo Dinh Diem as the Asian Churchill) wouldn't be as wise.

Much of this ground's been covered before (notably in Bernard Fall's military history Street Without Joy and Hell in a Very Small Place), but rarely with such depth, texture and insight. Logevall ably balances military clashes with political and diplomatic wheeling-and-dealings and day-to-day life during the conflict, a ruthless parade of battles and repression, terrorism and famine, colonial arrogance and nationalist intransigence. Even the best Western authors on Vietnam often struggle in presenting a native perspective, so Logevall's willingness to engage Ho, Diem and their comrades on their own terms rather than through propaganda or sentimental leftist posturing is refreshing and admirable. Even the chapters on literary figures inspired by Vietnam (Graham Greene, William Lederer, etc.) provide insight into how skewed Western perceptions of Indochina are, and remain today.

The book ends in late 1959, shortly after the first American servicemen die in Vietnam. By that time, the die had been cast: while France had left Indochina, America allowed its fear of Communism to overrule anti-colonial principles, triggering a slow, tragic escalation. Efforts to divide the country among the Vietminh and their non-Communist rivals ensured internecine conflict; Ho's regime instituted mass purges of "reactionaries" while Diem's regime slid into its own corruption and misrule. It led to a conflict that left millions dead, a superpower's reputation besmirched and a proud country scarred but reunited under totalitarian rule. The worst part, as Logevall reminds us, is that it was anything but inevitable.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

(The review below was started but not finished on March 17, 2023 but still posted. The review has now been completed. My apolgies to those who read it in the unfinished state.)

What an amazing book - and if you are interested in the Wars in Vietnam and how the USA got involved and made so many disastrous decisions then you need to read this book. It also makes interesting reading alongside Derek Leebaert's 'Grand Improvisation: America's Confronts British Super Power 1945-1957' published in 2018 and confirms his research that the United States after WWII depended on the British and to a lesser extent the French Empires to support her strategic goals. The USA was not interested in undermining either empire because the withdrawal of either power from an area only meant that the USA would be forced to pick up the slack, as happened in Greece. But to return to Vietnam.

Despite its length I would not say that this book has a single superfluous page and Logevall uses the length to great effect because he places The US's increasing involvement within a context of both international and domestic events. He also provides splendid background information on the Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian actions, positions and personalities. How little the reality of what was thought and done by them matches up with what US spokespersons, political, diplomatic and military said and believed at the time is startling to those of us who remember the distortions and downright lies that were told. Of course the US was not the only one who misrepresented things, but it is staggering how much these lies, distortions and misinformation and lack of understanding affected policy making.

As you read the book it is difficult not to be amazed at how many individuals and agencies accurately predicted or even described the reality of the situation that France faced in Vietnam which was, put simply, that the Vietnamese wanted to be free of France but if France gave Vietnam real independence why should France continue to fight? Alternatively if they are not really free why should the Vietnamese fight, and die, to maintain France as their colonial overlord? The refusal to accept that the conflict was in essence a nationalist one (with the complication arising that it was also a civil war) ensured that the USA happily replaced France as the 'colonial' power and inherited the problems in attempting to fight 'the communists' while failing to create or sustain a viable anti-communist regime.

Both before and after America assumed the burdens laid down by France this was apparent to everyone including a wide variety of politicians from both parties in the USA, almost every who worked at one of the innumerable agencies involved in intelligence gathering or supplying 'aid' civilian or military to the south Vietnamese state knew that it was unwinnable 'war'. Only powerful, but delusional, idiots like Henry Luce at Life magazine continued to chase after 'third force' politicians and regimes as an alternate to that of Ho Chi Min's*. Logevall makes it absolutely clear that there was never a lack of good intelligence available to the politicians and generals making and implementing policies, but politicians and generals like intelligence that matches their preconceived ideas and prejudices. The amount of good advice that was ignored is something staggering. Even those who at one time appeared to see things clearly, like John F. Kennedy when he travelled through Vietnam as a Senator in the early to mid 1950s, almost always stepped back from the truth once in power.

One of the subsidiary fascinations that Logevall shows is how often commentators and politicians learnt the wrong lessons from history. Post WWII both in the USA and the UK politicians were obsessed with not repeating the 'mistakes' and learning 'from the 'lessons' of appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. That neither USA nor UK politicians actually knew or understood anything about what actually happened in the 1930's did not prevent them from making disastrous policy decisions based on their ignorance. A great deal of the USA's responses to the Vietnam 'problem' as it developed in the 1950s was premised on a determination not to 'appease' communism just like Anthony Eden, the UK prime minister, viewed his dealings with Nasser over the Suez Canal nationalisation, through the prism of Hitler and Munich (it didn't help that Eden was probably also pissed off that a 'wog' dared to speak back to someone of his significance).

Which brings up the tantalising question of could the whole mess of the USA's involvement in Vietnam have been avoided? It is lovely to speculate and imagine but hard to imagine. It takes more than the right information to make good decisions, it requires living and working in the right intellectual environment. Decision makers in the USA had built the Red/communist threat up, for internal political reasons, into not simply a political bogey man but a moral one; the result was to remove their ability to manoeuvre in foreign affairs. Unless you place any alternate 'counterfactual' historical speculation within the cultural atmosphere that were current at the time such as the 'red scare' and 'domino theory'** and explain how an alternative narrative could have panned out within that culture then you are simply spinning fairy tales; fun, amusing but of no relevance - I don't see anyway that the Vietnam debacle could be avoided - well perhaps if anyone had bothered to ask the Vietnamese people, or cared what they said had they been asked, things might have been different (certainly for millions of ordinary Vietnamese) but we didn't live in that kind of war then and we don't live in that kind of world now ask any of the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, who were liberated - oh yeah their dead so you can't.

Although largely forgotten today it is the lies and distortions of people like Thomas Anthony Dooley with his tales of wicked communists puncturing the eardrums of defenceless children with chopsticks*** which, when broadcast through Henry Luce's many publications influenced Washington's actions far more then any diplomatic or CIA report because it fit into the Manichean battle of good versus evil that the Cold War Unless you place any alternate 'counterfactual' historical speculation within the cultural atmosphere were the 'red scare' and 'domino theory'** were not simply useful tropes by an absolute dogma and explain how an alternative narrative could have panned out then you are simply spinning fairy tales; fun, amusing but of no relevance. been sold to the American public as and which they had been assured that they, as the 'good guys', would win because not only were they richer and stronger but because they were morally better. The USA could not do wrong, its actions were always good, it had no selfish interests, they were completely disinterested so how could they fail? Which meant that it was impossible for a politician from any party to explain, let alone justify, compromising with those you had designated as evil? I don't want to belabour the point but you can see here the seeds of so many future foreign policy blunders by US administrations and the misrepresentation and lies that the US electorate would be feed again and again.

I have barely touched on the immense richness of this thoughtful and fascinating book and could keep on discussing a vast amount of information on individuals and incidents. It is wonderful and provides me with a new foundation upon which to base my reading on the Vietnam war. I think for anyone who wants to understand this dreadful war in all its complexities then this book is essential reading.

*It should not be forgotten that it was not the Communists who prevented a vote on reunification as called for in the 1954 Geneva Accords. Nor was it fear that the Communists would prevent a fair and impartial election. It was the USA and the Saigon regime who ensured they never happened because they knew and acknowledged, privately, that Ho and his regime would have won.
**The 'Domino Theory' was very similar to the unnamed theory that motivated most 19th century British colonial policy, the need to protect India, which as time progressed meant that almost anywhere in the world could be pronounced as 'essential' to protecting India or keeping access to it 'free'.
***The longevity and harmful consequences of Dooley's lies (I hate to write 'google' him on Wikipedia but this review is long enough and he is a fascinating example of the hypocrisy that was fed to the Home front in the USA and is but one example of why, when the Home front turned against the war they did so with such thoroughness) reached their apogee in the days before the fall of Saigon when various western charities loaded aeroplanes with orphan children and babies to 'save' them from the North Vietnamese. It was only after a plane crashed killing 78 children that the idiocy was stopped and some reporters suggested that it was not orphan children but, for example, the 'comfort' girls who had serviced US servicemen and their bastards, that needed saving from the North Vietnamese. Needless to say no one took up on that idea.

[Jennifer Ozawa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for pretty much anybody. This book is a perfect example of what people are not taught in school anymore. The Vietnam conflict was a huge turning point in American history, and before I started reading about it as an adult, I barely knew anything at all about it. The author really spells out the events that led up to it.

[Sean Smart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of the last decade of the French Empire in Indo-China and the beginning of the American involvement. Very good section on the Battle of Dien Bien Phu

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comprehensive, well-organized, engrossing and very well-written history of the French war in Indochina that led to the beginning of US involvement in that region. Logevall begins with the Japanese occupation during the world war up to 1959.

Logevall’s coverage of US involvement with the Diem regime is very good, and he does a great job explaining the remarkable number of ill-formulated and sometimes unrelated decisions made in this time period. One of Logevall’s points is that pretty much every decision made by US policymakers during this period had the effect of narrowing the options of subsequent administrations. Still, Logevall argues that this did not make increased US involvement in the region inevitable; it just made it more likely.

Logevall also does a great job covering all the diplomatic aspects of the time period.Ho Chi Minh is a central figure to the story and Logevall does a great job fleshing out and bringing life to this confusing and mysterious figure.

Eisenhower is often portrayed as a peacekeeper when it comes to southeast Asia. As Logevall shows, this is not entirely accurate; he had no desire to send troops there, but nor did he want the South Vietnamese regime to fall. When Eisenhower left office, there were hundreds of US advisers already in-country.

There were a few errors: for example that Ho drafted the petition for Allied leaders in Paris in 1919: Phan Vang Truong wrote it. Also, Logevall claims that Ho Chi Minh would have easily won the national elections after the Geneva accords were signed, but offers no evidence to support this claim. He also writes that all the village chiefs appointed by Diem were Catholic. This is incorrect as far as I know.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to concur with Professor Andrew J. Bacevich, a respected historian in his own right, who described this book as "A magisterial achievement"; I could not have said it better myself. Professor Logevall has written an instant classic, and this extraordinarily well-researched and well-written book is absolutely indispensable for the study of the wars in Indo-China. There are really not enough superlatives to adequately describe this work; suffice it to say that anyone with an interest in 20th century history generally, and particularly military or diplomatic history, or the history of U.S. foreign relations, should absolutely make a point of reading this as soon as practicable...

[James Wilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Embers of War explains the forty year history of Vietnam leading up to the debacle of U.S. involvement. It is a captivating and important book that I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in history or the Vietnam War.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the good fortune of hearing the author speak and then talking to him a bit about the Vietnam War. The book won the Pulitzer Prize. Excellent, especially in its "what if" tendencies.

In June 1919, a young man from Vietnam set out to approach the world leaders gathered in Paris to present them with a petition entitled "The Demands of the Vietnamese People." He especially hoped to reach Woodrow Wilson whose fourteen points seemed to promise self-determination for all people. The petition spoke of "the struggle of civilization against barbarism." The man's name was Nguyen Ai Quoc (He Who Loves His Country). He would later become one of the great revolutionaries of the 20th century Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens). The first of so many opportunities to prevent the tragedies that would occur in this small country.

Saigon was known as the "Pearl of the Far East" or the "Paris of the Orient."

The next opportunity comes with President Roosevelt. He wanted postwar independence for Indochina. DeGaulle on the other hand did not. He wanted to keep the colonies. For that matter, so did the British. It would be difficult for Roosevelt to hold sway, especially since he would eventually be facing death.

Many Vietnamese hoped the Americans in WWII would liberate them. And many Americans wanted to. But the French seemed determined. Even Sartre complained about "the inferiority complex" France had acquired in the War. So a defense of the empire was necessary. And of course there were companies like Michelin Tire who wanted the rubber plantations, known as the "graveyard of the peasants." To this day, I hate to buy Michelin tires.

The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the key intelligence service in the War. They fought with the Vietnamese and Ho knew them. Once again, he hoped they could make a difference, but it was difficult to go against the French and the so-called "conservatives" in the US government.

Ho actually rescued US pilots that crashed. He once got an autographed picture from Claire Chenault, the founder of the famed "fighting tigers." Ho proudly brandished the photo everywhere. The OSS probably did not fully comprehend Ho's communism, but so what. Ho hoped young Vietnamese could go to the US and study to learn to build a modern country. He once asked, "Am I any different from your George Washington?"

Harry Truman came along, and he was not Roosevelt's first choice for VP. Unfortunately, when the UN was formed, the "conservative" defenders of colonialism held sway.

Emperor Bao Dai spoke to his people, "I prefer to be a free citizen than an enslaved king." Viet Minh flags were everywhere. Vietnamese excitement was everywhere, hoping for a free nation. Ho spoke, "All men are created equal . . . " from our own Declaration of Independence. He called on the Allies to recognize Vietnamese freedom and independence. The crowd cheered the American flag. America seemed to be their only hope. Americans and Vietnamese celebrated together.

Truman worried about a stable and friendly France to secure Europe. De Gaulle had Truman's ear. But when Archimedes Patti of the OSS wrote, he was ignored. If he had been listened to, Vietnam could have been free. There would have been a struggle, but it would have been better than what happened. Maybe Ho could have been more like Tito of Yugoslavia.

Chinese troops came to Hanoi to help with withdrawing the Japanese. The Communists were not as popular in Saigon. The North/South split was always there.

The French General Gracey arrived in Saigon and proclaimed martial law. He sent out a thousand French soldiers to almost no restrictions. They terrorized the Vietnamese. They were beaten, jailed, and even hanged. One French woman who sympathized with the Viet Minh had her head shaved like in France to women who went with German soldiers. They took over. Angered by their brutality, Gracey ordered the men back to their barracks. The Vietnamese got revenge, massacring scores of civilians, including women and children. This could be the beginning of the war: September 23, 1945.

Peter Dewey became the first American killed. The French and Viet Minh accused each other of being responsible.

A Major with the pseudonym "Leclerc" took over. But it was the policies of his civilian counterpart that would lead to war with France. That man was Georges d'Argenlieu, a former monk who was told by de Gaulle to brook no defiance from any Vietnamese. While Vietnam was referred to as "independent," it was really controlled by France.

Ho still tried to gain support. He promised to safeguard private property. Any change in the economic system would be "gradual." "Capitalists" would be welcome. Meanwhile, French forces returned to Vietnam. In negotiations, the French referred to "guided self-government." The French also had the support of the "colons" or the French who had moved there. Socialists and Communists in France abandoned Ho. Ho always looked at the Philippines as an inspiration because America had allowed its freedom. Ho clearly warned the French that if they wanted a fight it would happen. Such discussions were a missed opportunity. Ho claimed he was not looking for complete independence, but who can say.

Vo Nguyen Giap led the Viet Minh while Ho was away. He was only 35, a self-taught military commander. He would lead fights against both the French and the Americans. The author ranks him with the finest military leaders in history. His name meant "armor." His father and older sister died in a French camp. He hated the French. Yet he admired Napoleon. His wife would later die in prison, and he would not know for 3 years. He would notice Ho's piercing eyes. But he believed Ho was manipulating people rather than being sincere. Perhaps that was his own rationality seeing a different view of things.

Ho made effort possible to gain independence but was rebuffed in almost every instance. There was interest almost solely with the Americans but the Cold War was just beginning to heat up. So the conservatives in the State Department and in France triumphed and war began. The French worked hard to convince Americans that Ho and the Viet Minh were one and the same with Stalinism.

Giap promoted terror and assassinations. He had to watch out that he did not lose the Vietnamese people though by too many. He always tried to be selective in his killings.

The French set up Bao Dai as the emperor, hoping to use him. But he was smarter than they realized.

Henry R. Luce had an enormous impact with his two magazines: Time and Life. Along with conservative columnist Joseph Alsop, they pushed for American support of the French against the Communists.

Dean Acheson would be part of US involvement here for two decades. He was one of the men who finally told Johnson there was no light at the end of the tunnel. For a while he was supportive of Vietnamese independence. But soon Mao took over China and nuclear proliferation began. Some of the red baiters even accused him of being a communist. Truman and Acheson felt the need to show strength against its spread somewhere. By 1950, America was ready to support fully the French. Ho's hope for support from America that he held since WWI was now almost certainly dashed.

In 1950, the Viet Minh won a great victory at RC4 when Giap made his biggest blunder of the war. A young French Lieutenant named de Lattre began a new policy by setting up a defense line around the Hanoi Haiphong area. Giap saw how the Chinese human wave attacks helped in Korea, so he planned a massive assault. For the first time, American made napalm canisters would be used. It was a huge defeat for the Viet Minh. De Lattre became known as King Jean. His death of cancer would be a great loss. He complained on his death bed about not understanding Indochina. His last words were searching for his son who died fighting there.

Senator John Kennedy would go to Vietnam. He was taken aback and realized the French were losing. He became convinced the US should connect with emerging nations. Nehru warned him about going to war over communism. Sadly, many other senators, both Republicans and Democrats, and even Truman and Acheson agreed with JFK. The pressures of the Cold War affected decisions.

In January 1952, two time bombs exploded in the center of two main downtown squares. Some people are quick to claim that the US was involved. I could never understand that. Why? Logevall, like myself, finds no evidence to justify such a claim.

Giap spoke of the war with the French as having no front. He quoted Pascal: "The enemy is everywhere and nowhere."

French soldiers had much to deal with. Lack of food. Biting insects. Burrowing ticks. Poisonous snakes and scorpions. Bloodsucking leeches. Fearsome tigers. And, of course, the rats. I have seen them, and they are huge. In your fear, they can seem as large as a woodchuck.

A new president was elected in the US with a crazy VP. Ho was worried and could never understand how anti-colonial US could support imperial France. He even reminisced about seeing Harlem and the Statue of Liberty.

For Eisenhower and others, it was a case of wanting to speak out against Communism, but defend the rights of people who want to be free. I believe they were sincere. It's just that their anti-Communist comments often came back to haunt them. McCarthyism was still a powerful force.

The French used erroneous conclusions to feel they had control. But the great Bernard Fall found out that the Viet Minh dominated 70 percent of the delta INSIDE the French perimeter, pretty much everywhere except Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong.

I found it interesting that Britain did not share the US's worries about Communism. They had no powerful Red Baiters. The British also had a concern about the US's unwillingness to negotiate with adversaries.

Giap had his own problems at Dien Bien Phu. His soldiers were tired of the high casualties. One surgeon and six assistants took care of 50,000 men. Soldiers lacked steel helmets, so many head injuries. Flies laid eggs on the wounds. Ticks infested the infirmary. Acute shortage of beds.

One big question I had is what would have been the result if the US agreed to send in B-26 bombers at Dien Bien Phu. Leaders resisted the French pressure. It is possible, however, it may have made a difference, at least for a while. It might have ended Giap's tenure as head general. I think the US knew the future was hopeless. Yet they would get into the same hopeless situation later.

The mud at Dien Bien Phu grew so bad, men had to relieve themselves where they were than slog through it. Genevieve de Galard-Terraube, age 29, was known as the "Angel of Dien Bien Phu for her work as a surgeon there. By April 17th of 1954, the first gangrene case occurred. Maggots grew under bloody bandages. They crawled over the hands and faces and in the ears of wounded soldiers. The lead surgeon, Major Grauwin, assured the men that the maggots aided in healing.

Among the Viet Minh, a man known now only by his initials as N.T. asked to postpone an attack for one day so his men could rest. He was called "unruly." His pleas were ignored: 3 of his 71 men survived the attack.

Even Moscow floated a partition idea in 1954 to divide the country between North and South, like Korea.

On April 29th, the all-out assault on Dien Bein Phu began. Air drops of supplies were often unable to be retrieved. Almost 700 drops were made by American pilots. James McGovern and Wallace Buford were the only ones to die. Many of the "French" soldiers were actually Moroccans, Algerians, Vietnamese, Tai, Arabs.

When Captain Jean Pouget asked for reinforcements, the response he got was, "Not another man, not another shell, my friend. You're a para. You're there to get yourself killed." Pouget signed off and disabled the radio. By the end of the day, he was captured.

General de Castries at the command post was told, "But what you have done until now surely is magnificent. Don't spoil it by hoisting the white flag. You are going to be submerged by the enemy, but no surrender, no white flag." He would be captured also, dressed impeccably. The battle was over. Asian troops had defeated a European army in fixed battle for the first time.

In France, citizens demanded to know who was responsible for putting soldiers in this trap. The author reviews mistakes that were made. Even so, the main problem was failing to account for an independent Vietnam.

At the Geneva Conference, Americans were told not to socialize with the Chinese. The Viet Minh wanted an end to the war because of the high toll they suffered. Efforts were made to try and keep Laos and Cambodia somewhat neutral. One of the problems with setting up a vote was the fear that Ho would win. But elections were to be held in two years after the signing: 1956. That agreement would give nationalists time to build up their support. The Viet Minh did not get a fair line across the country between North and South. It is believed it was the pressure of China and the Soviets who put pressure on to end this all.

The final French losses for the war were enormous. Staggering percentage of deaths. The remaining soldiers left Hanoi. The Viet Minh had a victory parade. Ho Chi Minh did not attend, as always modest. Sadly, many Vietnamese wanted the French connection. Viet Minh leaders spoke of French poetry books. All of this could have been handled so differently. Ho always insisted he was not a pawn of the hard liners in his government. Unfortunately, the hard liners were there as in any government.

Eisenhower, however, made it clear he had no intention of supporting the Geneva accords. Essentially, other than Ho, none of the countries involved cared much.

President Diem, meanwhile, had little charisma or managerial talent or even a sense of humor. So nationalists made little progress. Senator Mike Mansfield referred to Diem as the "last chance."

The North followed China's lead in land reform. It failed just as badly. Land was seized and panic set in. It pitted neighbor against neighbor. Everything "belonged to the people" including buffalo dung.

Colonel Lansdale was assigned the CIA role of helping Diem. About a million people fled to the South. No such movement went north. When I spoke to Vietnamese from the North, they all told me about atrocities, especially to Catholics. I think the author underplays this in his efforts to make Ho sound almost perfect. He puts some of the blame for the movement on Lansdale.

In "The Battle of Saigon" Diem's national army fought against the criminal syndicate Binh Xuyen. His victory cemented his role as president. The vice kingpin Bay Vien went to Paris and settled to a cushy retirement.

Now the Americans were in South Vietnam and the French were out. Ngo Dinh Diem now had American backing. Ho now knew the 1956 elections were in jeopardy. No country was out there to push for following the Geneva accords. Even supervision by the ICC would not satisfy American leaders. In 1955, Diem had an election to determine whether or not to keep a monarchy with Bao Dai. Even friendly observers were dismayed at the cheating. Diem was now in virtual total control. On the plus side, he did help modernize the country. His chief adviser was his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu who was married to the crazy and charismatic Madame Nhu. Americans stressed words like freedom and democracy. Graham Greene referred to Diem as Patriot Ruined by the West. Even JFK started to support Mr. Diem.

Diem continued to alienate people whose backing he needed. He ignored American experts on land reform. His Can Lao party, mostly Catholics, pervaded all South Vietnamese life. A new insurgency began against Diem.

Bernard Fall went back to Vietnam in 1957 calling it a "bad love affair." He thought the Americans were at least not colonialists like the French. He realized the situation was not at all stable. He noted how village chiefs had a high casualty rate. They were, of course, being assassinated. He soon realized Saigon was surrounded by village chiefs who were now communists. There was a clear pattern. To survive, the chief had to declare loyalty to the communists. The ARVN were not being outfought but rather "outadministered." No one could convince Diem of this. Some key Americans knew what was happening but were unable to change things.

Both the Chinese and the Soviets did not want Ho to begin any kind of fight in the South. They had other interests.

Finally, the North decided to step up its activities in the South. Just in time with the infamous 10/59 decree by Diem which effectively cut out opposition. He only managed to grow the opposition. Catholics were granted power more than any other group. The Americans were too unwilling to interfere.

On July 8, 1959, eight American advisers near Bien Hoa watched a movie. Six VC guerrillas slipped in undetected and open fired. Chester Ovnand and Dale Buis were killed. They are the first of the second Indochina War. They are the first two names on the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. Along with over 58,000 others.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Embers of War" is a page-turning account of how the United States became enmeshed in Vietnam after the Second World War and how those entanglements led to the Vietnam. What makes the book especially interesting to American readers, is how Longevall, a historian at Cornell University, tells the story through the lens of the France's war in Indochina after World War II, so in that sense the book is really two stories: a gripping account of the French war that lasted from between 1945/46 to 1954 or so and then a disturbing account of the origins of what would become the second war. What is particularly striking is the extent to which the idea of American involvement in Indochina evolved from one that was outright rejected by Franklin Roosevelt on the grounds that the US shouldn't support a colonial war to one that became accepted wisdom on the part of Democratic and Republican administrations as a necessary part of the "Cold War." Ironically, American policymakers with their love of "domino theories" and the like never fully understood the Vietnamese perspective and the strained relationships that the Viet Minh had with both the USSR and China. Moreover, as American involvement increased, many of the same mistakes that the French had made earlier were repeated and the lessons that came out of the first war were ignored, largely on the grounds that the American leaders felt themselves smarter and better able than their French political, diplomatic, and military counterparts. "Embers of War" is an excellent account of a history that relatively few Americans know (the First, French-led war) and a reminder of how dangerous a problem policy and political "groupthink" is.

[Aaron Million · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. Fredrik Logevall has written a must-read for anyone who is interested how the Vietnam War came into being. Instead of focusing solely on the massive U.S. escalation in the mid and late 1960s, or the inglorious ending in the mid 1970s, Logevall goes back to the 1940s, when the world was a much different place, and takes the reader through the end of the 1950s, by which time the United States had already deeply entangled itself into the complexities of Vietnam With a huge cast of characters that never seems overwhelming, the book flows effortlessly from start to finish.

Logevall begins by examining the first attempt by a young Ho Chi Minh, who in 1919 tried desperately to get a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference following the conclusion to WWI. Ho never got anywhere near Wilson, nor did his petition for Vietnamese independence. Already, the country had been taken over by the French, under colonialism, in the 1800s. This would not be the last time that Ho would appeal to the U.S. for assistance, but unfortunately for him, and for history, the answer would always be the same: no response (Ho tried to reach Harry Truman in the late 1940s). Logevall wonders just how different things might have gone had Ho gained a receptive audience with a U.S. leader. Would he have stayed away from communism? That is impossible to say. Perhaps Ho saw the U.S. as his and Vietnam's best chance to eject the imperialistic French and the gain independence. Or perhaps he was really open to different ideologies, or at least not as concerned with ideology as with the Vietnamese being able to run their own country. It is one of history's huge “If” questions.

Then Logevall moves forward to the end of WWII, when Japan had forcibly taken Vietnam from the French. Franklin Roosevelt comes into play here: he was completely against colonialism and steadfastly did not want France to reinsert itself into Vietnam. However, with him dying right before the war ended, a negative U.S. policy towards colonialism died with him. His successor, Truman, was overwhelmed by being thrust into office with a world war still ongoing, and had no time to focus on Indochina (Vietnam was frequently referred to as this at that time). Later on, Truman and his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, took the first fateful steps of American involvement in Vietnam by providing material support and aid to the French, who reclaimed their previous spot once Japan was defeated by the Allies. While Truman did not commit troops, his administration set in motion a policy of assistance (based on attempting to keep Vietnam from turning Communist, and by extension allowing the influence of China and/or the Soviet Union to expand) that only grew more pronounced over the next quarter century.

Much of the book is spent examining the arrogance and futility of the French, as they repeatedly fail to oust the Communist Vietminh from the north, and are unable to adapt to the guerrilla war tactics that would later cause America so much consternation. While the main thrust of this book is on the diplomatic maneuvering between Vietnam, France, the U.S. and to a lesser extent Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China, Logevall examines several battles that the French fought. He writes engagingly of the military encounters, and his examination of the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 is especially noteworthy. This was ultimately what drove the French out of Vietnam, and left a vacuum that was immediately gobbled up by the U.S. Logevall examine French politics, the personalities involved (Charles de Gaulle set the initial policy in 1946 but then exited the stage), and the context of the times, in Paris, in London, in Washington D.C., and the world.

Dwight Eisenhower continued down the road that Truman had started on, and quickly increased U.S. involvement, thanks particularly to his militant Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Eisenhower and Dulles especially come off looking pretty bad here: their policy of stiff anti-communism coupled with them hitching their hopes on the disastrous Ngo Dinh Diem really got the U.S. into a mess. While Lyndon Johnson gets more of the blame on Vietnam than anyone else (I am not saying that is not deserved) Logevall makes clear that Eisenhower's hands were far from clean. Nor were those of his Vice President, Richard Nixon, who was all for committing ground troops even back then. At least Eisenhower resisted that, although his decision to place “advisers” in the country in 1959 is pretty darn close to committing troops. As with the French, Logevall places Eisenhower, Dulles, Nixon and everyone else into context, and explains why they felt pressure domestically in the U.S. at that time.

Logevall finishes by looking at Diem's poorly ran and, at times, brutal regime in the southern section of the country following partition. Many of the things that Diem did were no better than the atrocities committed by the Communists. Both sides inflicted brutality and terror on the general populace. The big difference: the Communists were much more successful. The main thread of the story ends in 1959, although Logevall provides a nice epilogue reviewing some of the decisions made in the early 1960s by John F. Kennedy, and then Johnson. This is really a top-notch book, an exquisite work of history that tries to show all sides to the conflict equally, and apportions blame appropriately. Essential to understanding Vietnam, and America's unfortunate role in it.

Grade: A

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers love to discover books which articulate what they've always known and understood. Embers of War fits my ideas of America's involvement in Vietnam. For that reason it's not surprising I'd like the book and consider it important in that it voices perspectives long needing to be made clear.

Logevall's huge book is a comprehensive history of the French return to Indochina following the defeat of Japan in 1945, how it found there a burgeoning nationalism and a free Vietnam already proclaimed under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, how the French reinstated themselves, precipitating the revolutionary warfare with the Viet Minh which culminated in the decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu eight years later and the cessation of hostilities and division of the country at the 1954 Geneva Conference and how, from there the U. S. was handed, or snatched, the baton of responsibility for the security of South Vietnam. It's a big story. Logevall's organization of all this material and his careful narrative explaining all the complexities of Vietnamese nationalism and what's called the First Indochina War (1946-1954) is truly impressive.

The bulk of his history is that war between the French and the Viet Minh. One of his most important considerations is explaining how Vietnamese nationalism led by Ho and the Viet Minh was complicated by its communist philosophy and how this association affected perception by western governments which found themselves locked in a competition with the Soviet bloc, a competition always threatening to destabilize into some kind of open conflict. More, how Ho's difficulties with the west were made even worse when Mao's communist armies defeated Chiang Kai-shek's republican armies in 1949 and when the Soviet Union and China recognized the Viet Minh as the legitimate government of Vietnam. Logevall spends a lot of time explaining Ho as shortsighted in not being able to see how the Vietnamese war and politics made up a part of the big picture of global political confrontation, and how his insularity precluded diplomatic moves which might have softened the west's view of the Viet Minh and their motives.

One of the most important factors in this history, of course, was the Korean War, conducted primarily by America and finally resulting in a stalemate and armistice. The U. S. always, from the first moment, linked the two wars as part of the same east/west struggle. That linkage was emphasized by Eisenhower and was behind America's more active role in Southeast Asia following the end of the Korean War. The U. S. had held the line against communist aggression and charged France with doing the same in Indochina. But even massive material aid couldn't insure French success in the face of a stubborn enemy and growing domestic disenchantment with an 8-year war.

As the book closes, how the U. S. became mired in Vietnamese politics leading to eventual military intervention, how the U. S. came in the end to make the same mistakes as the French, how the North Vietnamese decided again on a military solution to reunification, becomes the focus. Eisenhower's strong advocacy of blocking communism in the region, with military means if necessary, continued to dominate policy. Even recognizing the unpopularity of the Diem government in the south and the likelihood that that government would fail did not keep Ike's successors, Kennedy and Johnson, from pressing on with the same policies because America always seemed to plunge along the same path trusting the situation would improve. And always the need to be perceived, in the age of McCarthyism and shortly after, as standing up to communism was of political importance, as was the need to not "lose Vietnam" as Truman was said to have "lost China." All decisions regarding Vietnam were made in this heated political atmosphere in which America saw itself as the leader in the geopolitical contest with communism. Logevall carefully analyzes these points and many more as he arrives at the point of American military intervention.

This is big, complex history. It takes many twists and involves many leaders of several nations, all of whom realize triumph and miscalculation. I think Logevall has done a masterful job in sorting it all out. For those with even the slightest interest in the Vietnam War, even for those who enjoy interesting history well told and well written, I think Embers of War is essential reading.

[Chin Joo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Vietnam War has received extensive studies and spawn a great many books. Most of them focus on the USA's involvement in what the Vietnamese called the Second Vietnam War. Much less emphasis has been given to the First Vietnam War, that between the French and the Vietnamese. This excellent book goes a long way in adding to the small body of literature and does it with style.

The story started in the Second World War. Then, the French had to content with the Japanese. The Japanese wanted to be in Vietnam to stage the action to block aid from going to Chiang through Yunan. while there was initial apprehensions because they did not want a conflict with the US (pg. 41), they did not know that the US would counsel the French to accede to the demands of the Japanese (pg. 32).Yet this would eventually lead the US to make the fateful decision to increase economic sanctions on Japan who, by then, had decided that she had no choice but to secure the resources from Southeast Asia. Which brought it to war with the US, and having to surrender, gave the Vietnamese the opportunity to demand independence.

This book explores the question: how did the US eventually got caught in such a tragic war after the French left Vietnam? In doing so, the author spent a good amount of time focusing on the famous Domino Theory which in hindsight did not materialise. Immediately after the Second World War, the US was at best ambivalent to the Vietnam question and in fact leaned towards asking the French to give independence to the Vietnamese. The French though, would have none of that and was able to cleverly portray the fight against Ho Chi Min as that of a frontier against the spread of Communism which requires the materiel support of the US. The US would be persuaded (pg. 220, 356).

As the US got more involved, they eventually had to confront the dilemma: should they follow their anti-colonial instincts or should they support the French in the larger context of the Cold War? They first chose a position that was a non-starter for the French - to promise independence to Vietnam but at the same time fight the Communist. That was a logical recommendation to an ally helping them to fight a broader war against the spread of Communism; it was fantastical idea if one is fighting to hold on to a colony, which the French was. So the French led the Americans along, and eventually when they felt that the Americans were too bothersome, wanted to shake them off.

And I quote from Jack Higgins's book Touch the Devil : Touch the devil and you can't let go.

By 1952, the French felt that they had had enough but by then the Americans felt that they had been in the game too deep to let the French quit (pg. 318, 346-347). The French would not be able to shake the Americans off, and would have no choice but to go on with the war, culminating in Dien Bien Phu. The Americans who at first had to underwrite the war would end up taking over from the French. There would be a few years of relative calm as the date of the promised election in Vietnam came and went and the Americans would have their own experience at not being able to let the devil go (pg. 186, 197).

Prof. Logevall is an engaging writer. I particularly enjoy the lead up to Dien Bien Phu with all the suspense and then the fiasco as the French parameters shrunk. But it is not just enjoyable writing that makes this book an important one to read. In it, one will see history rearing its head, the attitudes that the French had (eg. the sunken cost) could also later be seen on the Americans, the belief amongst the Vietnamese that the foreigners would eventually go home would be repeated in the Second Vietnam War. We are left to wonder about ourselves, do we learn?

[Mike Kershaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Embers of War by Fredrik Logevall is subtitled The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam. It could probably be better subtitled "Kicking the Can Down the Road". Logevall spends 700 pages demonstrating that successive American administrations, from Truman's to Kennedy's, acted in a manner which almost inexorably led America to war in Vietnam. He does this by focusing at the strategic and diplomatic level, with just enough of the French combat experience in Vietnam to provide context. I would highly recommend rereading Windrow's "The Last Valley" if you feel sketchy on some of the historical details. But Logevall's book is well-written enough to be read by itself.

Logevall's describes a Viet Minh leadership wary of American involvement and bitterly opposed to the reestablishment of French rule in Indochina. He sees FDR's death as a decisive event-- his anti-colonialist policies may have forestalled French reoccupation of Indochina. Absence his presence and several other factors, Truman and his successors followed a 'path of least resistance' as domestic and international concerns conspired to keep on the road to deeper involvement, even as the intractable nature of the situation became more and more apparent. Nowhere does he demonstrate this more convincingly than in the period of 1962-63, where contrary to some conventional wisdom, JFK was involving the United States more deeply in Vietnam that is widely acknowledged. His criticism is bi-partisan -- Eisenhower, who it is alleged 'kept us out of Vietnam', in fact, encouraged the French and dabbled in engagement throughout his time in office and laid the ground work for deeper commitment.

He also demonstrates the difficulty with which the French tried to regain control Vietnam after World War II. Nowhere was colonialism so completely swept away than when the Japanese occupied the country in 1940 -- a key milestone on America's road to war with Japan and it is telling how little nationalist sentiment they could garner in the post-war years. While they had some success in the south, with British/Indian assistance, the French hold in the north was always tenuous. In spite of Viet Minh early ineptitude at fighting a 'big unit war', as early as 1950, they were being run out of areas that were later serve as the base for successful Viet Minh campaigns against the Delta and Dien Bein Phu and losing entire European battalions in action against Giap's increasingly capable forces.

For those who are skeptical of the Viet Minh's motivations in the early post war period, I would recommend Spector's In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia. Spector describes Allied activities in the wake of the Japanese surrender across the Southeast Asia in particular -- it is small wonder we faced so many challenges and made so many miscues -- China, Korea and Vietnam -- in the light of the competing requirements, changing political landscape and American war weariness. In Logevall's account, Ho Chi Minh is credited with holding out for American benevolence as well as recognizing that eventually it would be America -- not the Soviets -- who have the most to say about Vietnamese independence. Regardless, he was as confident of our defeat as he was of the French's although by the time of the American involvement he had been relegated largely to figurehead status.

The value of Logevall's narrative is that it puts American challenges elsewhere -- Greece, Suez and Korea -- in the context of Vietnam as well as drawing distinction between succeeding administrations rhetoric and actions. For value today, he demonstrates that each administrations are constrained on multiple fronts -- domestically, internationally, etc... Often times, the road less travelled is simply seen as 'too hard' to do.

[Helga Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fredrik Logevall’s well deserved Pulitzer Prize book about the First Indochina War and the French experience in Vietnam was extremely interesting. It was a dense book and covered a lot of history from its origins from the French colonization through the Kennedy administration.

Logevall explores the conflict with insight into American, Vietnamese, French, British and Chinese perspectives on Indochina’s “10,000 Day War”. He shows France’s blundering poorly advised efforts to recolonize after WWII, the Vietnamese leadership that changed from Marxism to Non-Aligned Nationalism, and the British and American efforts to block communism. We see how Eisenhower did not want to send troops to Vietnam but did not want the regime to fail so hundreds of US advisers were sent to intervene.

The French tried everything that the Americans would try later thinking they knew better but they all knew by 1965 it was unwinnable. So in the end, America left as the French left and Indochina was back in its civil war with North Vietnam against the South.

This forty year history of Vietnam leading up to the US disastrous involvement is a highly important book to anyone interested in history and the Vietnam War.

[Stan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fascinating. How many of we Americans knew that Ho Chi Minh had tried to see President Wilson in Paris in 1919 to try to get the USA to help Vietnam gain her independence from France? My guess is not many. Professor Logevall leads us through the history of Ho Chi Minh and his attempts to gain freedom from Vietnam's colonial ruler, shows us how it may have been much different had Roosevelt lived, and takes us through Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations as no one else has. Anybody who desires any knowledge of national security policy decision making and quagmires should read this.

[stl̓laqsšn̓ · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give it 6 stars I would

[Columbia Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tremendously well-written, well-researched, and well-argued book. For an American audience, this is a valuable "prequel" to our Vietnam War. The writing is excellent and the book lays out the story of the French involvement in Vietnam, culminating in the devastating war, all the while weaving in the story of the growing American involvement. The book also presents multiple perspectives, giving the reader a greater understanding of why and how the Viet Minh were successful in winning over significant portions of the Vietnamese population. Also presented is the well-worn story of geopolitical concerns trumping rational calculations of the best strategies in a local area.

[BookishStitcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two months and 864 pages have now been conquered. I now know so much about the time period leading up to the US entering the Vietnam war. This tome mostly deals with France dreading losing being a colonial power by losing control over Vietnam. There actually isn't any of the intense time we would think of for America's Vietnam war since this book covers the time before 1965. It talks about all the key players at the time. People from France, Vietnam, England, US, Russia, and China are all talked about in the roles they played. I learned a ton from this book, and now feel like a pseudo-expert on this subject, but I wish it had gone more into the US involvement after 1965.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fredrik Logevall covers the rise of Ho Chi Minh, the First Indochina War, and the political intrigue that eventually led to America’s full military commitment in Vietnam. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel like an expert after you’ve read it; comprehensive, authoritative, lucid, and tight as a drum.

[A]

Started with the big question "Why on earth America got itself involved in some place so distant and unrelated like Vietnam" Got my answer and how! This is the best to begin with if you are interested in cold war politics, domino theory or McCarthyism. Quality stuff!

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book on Vietnam in the first half of the 20th century leading up the USA war with Vietnam. Mistakes were made by well meaning and not well meaning people that escalated the buildup to war.

A bit long winded at times for me, but an important book.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The prequel to Vietnam. Most of us, me included, never cared much how it got here, we just wanted to know and read about the big US engagements and how dramatic the tragedy of it all was that the US could lose a war such as this. But what about the tragedy of actually going down that road to begin with. This is a 700 page build up to the Vietnam War. The entire book almost takes place in the early 1950s alone. Just saying - this is an entirely different book on Vietnam then most are used to. I say don’t let that discourage you from taking the time to read this great piece of history. There are so many layers to take away from here aside from the US getting sucked into a misguided war. It’s the sad waning of the French empire (which let’s face it died in WW2), the end of colonialism(nothing wrong there), the Red scare of the 50s (arguably how the US bamboozled itself into the war), and the simple dream of Ho Chi Minh and his quest for independence (not totally innocent).

It deserves all the awards it’s received, it’s very well written, immensely readable, and unbelievably thorough. You will learn more then you already know and it may change your opinion on quite a few deep rooted convictions you may have. That’s the importance of an origin story, it’s always important to have context.