Night Flight to Hanoi

by Daniel Berrigan

Military biography

Genres: Memoir, History, Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Daniel Joseph Berrigan (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, college professor, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains the diary entries and poems of Father Daniel Berrigan, a priest, a poet, and a radical critic of the Vietnam conflict, which he wrote during his visit to Vientiane and Hanoi in 1968. He spent only a week in each of those places, so his diary is not especially informative and elaborate. It is his thoughts on the American involvement in Vietnam, on the government, and on people in general that makes his narrative memorable.

The first quote of Berrigan's that made me respect him is that he directly calls war "legalized murder." One of the Six Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill." Jesus Christ expressed it clearly and simply: we should not kill anyone. It has never been "Thou shalt not kill, but it is okay for thou to kill some people because of this or that reason." However, this is precisely what those who want us to kill other people on a mass scale try to make us believe Jesus meant. This is why Berrigan begins with an appeal to his fellow Christians to "consider in their hearts" how many more people must die before the violence stopped.

"Peace as balance of terror, "Realpolitik," brinkmanship, hot lines and cold war – the lies, the lies explode in the face of the helpless and the poor. Which is the greater outrage – that the innocent die under the bombs, or that the poor are enlisted to launch the bombers? What more incredible disruption of the right order of nature than this; that killers and victims, on orders from the white power elite, should show each other the faces of the African slave and the Asian colonial!" This paragraph is the most on-point depiction of the essence of war that I have ever read. Is it not the same in Ukraine now? The ones who join the Russian army and go invade a neighboring country are usually motivated by the temptation of earning money because receiving a good salary working a non-morally reprehensible job is challenging, if not unachievable. The innocent common people of Ukraine then become their victims. It is like that in every war. "Паны дерутся, а у холопов чубы трещат," as the saying goes. In other words, the governments are fighting, but the common people are the ones who take the hits. However, the author adds in another brilliant quote, "The Chanceries and Pentagons can concoct a rhetoric to justify their murders. But one thing they can never do. . . . They cannot create guerrillas. Which is to say, they cannot create and sustain relationships to other men, and to the land."

He is harsh on American foreign policy and on the idea of American exceptionalism. "The biography of the white Westerner," he writes. "He requires (1) someone to kill for him and (2) someone to die for him." I would say that this applies not to white Western people in general, but to many of those who are in power. As is said, if the policy-makers' sons were sent to the front, there would have been no wars. 

An interesting aspect of the author's work is that he mentions American attacks on North Vietnamese hospitals, whose cruel objective, according to him, was to make sure that North Vietnam would not have sufficient medical facilities for a civilized future. The air bombing had led to the disappearance of hospitals and the emergence of small, separate facilities with underground shelters. 

NIGHT FLIGHT TO HANOI is full of so many great thoughts that if I had to quote everything that I have noted, this review would be as long as the author's account. This book is thought-provoking. Regarding Berrigan's poems, which introduce chapters, I would say that they are emotional and meaningful – gritty, not easy to read. 

[Chad Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than any other author, Daniel Berrigan has shaped my personal theology and views. His courageous insistence I’m calling good good and evil evil, evil in the face of enormous hostility, pressure, and even persecution from church and state serves and a challenge to all of us comfortable in Middle Class, American Christianity.

This book is a diary of sorts, recounting a mission that Daniel Berrigan undertook with Howard Zinn to rescue three American POWs from the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. Filled with poetry, interviews, and commentary both on the mission itself and themes of violence and non-resistance so dear to Daniel Berrigan’s heart, this book is everything you would expect from the author.

There were certainly things that I disagreed with. I think that the tone of the book is slightly naïve when it comes to the intentions of the North Vietnamese. Having read many of his books, it appears that he sometimes takes too rosy a view of the persecuted side, as he does similar things with Israel and Palestine. This keeps him from seeing some of the atrocities and evil is committed on the other side, or at least keeps him from commenting on them, as it doesn’t serve the narrative.

I don’t fault him too much for this. He is trying to show the horrors that have been committed by the American side in a war that we didn’t even belong in. His focus is on our evils, our mistakes, our spiritual blindness. In other words, he is a prophet to America, not Vietnam, and consequently he keeps his focus like a laser on our country.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone.

[Riki Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Berrigan and Howard Zinn traveled to Hanoi in 1969 ostensibly to release three American pilots from the Vietcong. They succeeded, but their sense of mission was much deeper than that. Between 2-3- million Vietnamese people died during this war, killed not only by the "enemy", but also by us, who were supposedly there to save them. Berrigan and Zinn knew the difference between law and justice. Collateral damage was not acceptable. As Zinn writes in his forward, "It is the mark of wise men to know what is important. The flesh of Vietnamese men, women and children, the blood of young American soldiers, the anguish of parents grieving their children – that is important. The paper and paraphernalia of the system that selects men for war – that is important." It is the premise of this book that the the American ghetto and the Hanoi “operation” were a single enterprise. It was black bodies recruited in an attempted genocide conceived by military minds.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination memoir, collection of poems, and reflection on the Vietnam War. Daniel Berrigan and Howard Zinn went as representatives of the antiwar movement to North Vietnam in 1968 in order to pick up 3 POWs being released by the NVA. This contains Father Berrigan's thoughts before, during, and after the trip, and some poems inspired by the trip. Some segments are more informative/interesting than others, but on the whole, a moving and thoughtful book.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reading the Berrigan brothers for the first time, some 50 years after their writing. This stunning. book of history, poetry, political discussion seems as lively and timely as it must have been when it first came out.

[Matty B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good to reflect on U.S. militarism then (Vietnam) and now.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in the literary style of someone born before television.

Pacifist insights applicable to any war of extermination; change names of participants as needed.

[Shannon T.L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

i need a bit more background in this book in order to really appreciate it. but it was still quite interesting.