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Deliver Us from Evil
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142 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
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About the author
Thomas A. Dooley
21 books2 followersThomas Anthony Dooley, III.
Doctor, US Navy officer, and humanitaian.
Graduate of Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
For his humanitarian service in Southeast Asia, he was awarded the Legion of Merit (United States), the National Order of Vietnam, and in 1962 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President John F. Kennedy.
Doctor, US Navy officer, and humanitaian.
Graduate of Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
For his humanitarian service in Southeast Asia, he was awarded the Legion of Merit (United States), the National Order of Vietnam, and in 1962 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President John F. Kennedy.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 25, 2022
This short book was written by a young doctor who in the late 1950s shaped the American attitude toward the Vietnam conflict. Largely forgotten today, his name was a household one in America back then — in January 1961, not long before he died of cancer at the age of thirty-four, a Gallup poll ranked him third among the world’s "most esteemed men," right behind President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the pope. This young doctor's name was Thomas A. Dooley.
Born into privilege in St. Louis, Dooley was a bad student and barely made it through his medical studies. After graduation, he took the only job he could land – at the Navy Medical Corps. In 1954, he was assigned to the USS Montague and spent significant time in the refugee camps in Haiphong, monitoring the health condition of refugees, mostly Catholics, fleeing the Viet Minh's persecution from North Vietnam to the south in Operation Passage to Freedom – a massive exodus that was facilitated by the CIA and allowed the United States and the Diem regime to reap significant propaganda benefits. Fluent in French and excessively energetic, Dooley worked tirelessly to combat contagious diseases, earning praise from superiors, a Legion of Merit, and a personal decoration from Ngo Dinh Diem.
According to his biographer James T. Fisher (Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927-1961), his work with the Catholic refugees also made Thomas Dooley an ardent and unrelenting anti-Communist. When William Lederer, the future co-author of the Cold War classic The Ugly American, visited Haiphong in early 1955 looking for eyewitness stories on the refugee crisis, he met Dooley. The doctor described his work in gripping terms. Lederer said it had the makings of a “helluva book” and offered to help create it. Dooley jumped at the chance. The result was DELIVER US FROM EVIL, which was received with great enthusiasm by the public.
With its nightmarish tales of Viet Minh atrocities, and its unapologetic praise of Dooley’s and America’s good deeds in the refugee crisis, the book became a bestseller and a potent propaganda tool in 1956. A gifted storyteller, Dooley captivated readers with his colorful tales of Viet Minh atrocities. His narrative, full of pathos and wrenching images, painted a black-and-white world that was consistent with America's Cold War ideology. In his telling, the refugees were always helpless victims, unable to think or act for themselves and wholly reliant on the heroic efforts of American doctors and sailors, while the Viet Minh men were irredeemably evil, so devoid of conscience that Dooley referred to them simply as that “ghoulish thing.” “What do you do for children who have had chopsticks driven into their ears [by the Viet Minh]?” writes he in DELIVER US FROM EVIL. “Or for old women whose collarbones have been shattered by rifle butts? Or for kids whose ears have been torn out with pincers? How do you treat a priest who has had nails driven into his skull to make a travesty of the Crown of Thorns?”
American policy-makers, as well as the Saigon government, recognized what a great propaganda tool the handsome, charismatic young doctor and his book were, so they all hastened to pour praise on Dooley's account, which was, in fact, greatly misleading – if not outright false. Diem cabled Dooley, thanking him for “the wonderful service you have rendered Vietnam. . . . [Y]ou have eloquently told the story . . . of hundreds of thousands of my countrymen seeking to assure the enjoyment of their God-given rights.”
Thus, that Thomas Dooley's narrative of the Passage of Freedom was completely unsubstantiated and made up of exaggerations and lies would not be revealed for years. Although a group of American officials who served in the Hanoi-Haiphong area during Dooley’s time there reported as early as 1956 that his account was “not the truth” and that his tales of Communist misdeeds were “nonfactual and exaggerated," their report was kept secret. But in 1991, William Lederer himself acknowledged that the atrocities Dooley described “never took place.” What's more, one of the corpsmen who had served under Dooley’s command in MEDICO in Haiphong said years later that he never witnessed any of the Viet Minh atrocities Dooley claimed to have witnessed and chronicled.
In his book Dr. America, James T. Fischer explains Thomas Dooley's real motivation for writing an account almost entirely based on lies: he worked for the CIA. As early as 1954, Colonel Edward Lansdale, the freelance CIA operative in Vietnam, had begun a psy-war against the northern Communists. One of his strategies involved exactly that – planting false stories of unfathomable Viet Minh brutality that would spread through Vietnam like wildfire and deeply offend American sentiments. Lansdale was so unrestrained in his fantasies that his tactics often outraged Washington. In the movie-star handsome, charismatic Thomas Dooley, who admired him, the CIA agent saw a credible, effective way to continue pursuing his psy-war, which was, in fact, quite successful. That is how the young doctor started making up stories about kids with eardrums pierced by chopsticks and so on – Dooley worked for the CIA.
Alas, in the 1950s, many Americans were ready to believe him. It was easier to embrace the conviction that everything America was doing in Vietnam was good – and undoubtedly much better than everything the Viet Minh was doing. That Thomas Dooley shared the widespread and profound American ignorance of Vietnam, its society, history, and politics, did not matter to them.
However, it should matter a lot to readers nowadays. I recommend DELIVER US FROM EVIL exclusively as a curious phenomenon and an example of pro-American Cold War propaganda. This book should not by any means be viewed as a reliable source, and none of Thomas Dooley's claims should be taken at face value.
Born into privilege in St. Louis, Dooley was a bad student and barely made it through his medical studies. After graduation, he took the only job he could land – at the Navy Medical Corps. In 1954, he was assigned to the USS Montague and spent significant time in the refugee camps in Haiphong, monitoring the health condition of refugees, mostly Catholics, fleeing the Viet Minh's persecution from North Vietnam to the south in Operation Passage to Freedom – a massive exodus that was facilitated by the CIA and allowed the United States and the Diem regime to reap significant propaganda benefits. Fluent in French and excessively energetic, Dooley worked tirelessly to combat contagious diseases, earning praise from superiors, a Legion of Merit, and a personal decoration from Ngo Dinh Diem.
According to his biographer James T. Fisher (Dr. America: The Lives of Thomas A. Dooley, 1927-1961), his work with the Catholic refugees also made Thomas Dooley an ardent and unrelenting anti-Communist. When William Lederer, the future co-author of the Cold War classic The Ugly American, visited Haiphong in early 1955 looking for eyewitness stories on the refugee crisis, he met Dooley. The doctor described his work in gripping terms. Lederer said it had the makings of a “helluva book” and offered to help create it. Dooley jumped at the chance. The result was DELIVER US FROM EVIL, which was received with great enthusiasm by the public.
With its nightmarish tales of Viet Minh atrocities, and its unapologetic praise of Dooley’s and America’s good deeds in the refugee crisis, the book became a bestseller and a potent propaganda tool in 1956. A gifted storyteller, Dooley captivated readers with his colorful tales of Viet Minh atrocities. His narrative, full of pathos and wrenching images, painted a black-and-white world that was consistent with America's Cold War ideology. In his telling, the refugees were always helpless victims, unable to think or act for themselves and wholly reliant on the heroic efforts of American doctors and sailors, while the Viet Minh men were irredeemably evil, so devoid of conscience that Dooley referred to them simply as that “ghoulish thing.” “What do you do for children who have had chopsticks driven into their ears [by the Viet Minh]?” writes he in DELIVER US FROM EVIL. “Or for old women whose collarbones have been shattered by rifle butts? Or for kids whose ears have been torn out with pincers? How do you treat a priest who has had nails driven into his skull to make a travesty of the Crown of Thorns?”
American policy-makers, as well as the Saigon government, recognized what a great propaganda tool the handsome, charismatic young doctor and his book were, so they all hastened to pour praise on Dooley's account, which was, in fact, greatly misleading – if not outright false. Diem cabled Dooley, thanking him for “the wonderful service you have rendered Vietnam. . . . [Y]ou have eloquently told the story . . . of hundreds of thousands of my countrymen seeking to assure the enjoyment of their God-given rights.”
Thus, that Thomas Dooley's narrative of the Passage of Freedom was completely unsubstantiated and made up of exaggerations and lies would not be revealed for years. Although a group of American officials who served in the Hanoi-Haiphong area during Dooley’s time there reported as early as 1956 that his account was “not the truth” and that his tales of Communist misdeeds were “nonfactual and exaggerated," their report was kept secret. But in 1991, William Lederer himself acknowledged that the atrocities Dooley described “never took place.” What's more, one of the corpsmen who had served under Dooley’s command in MEDICO in Haiphong said years later that he never witnessed any of the Viet Minh atrocities Dooley claimed to have witnessed and chronicled.
In his book Dr. America, James T. Fischer explains Thomas Dooley's real motivation for writing an account almost entirely based on lies: he worked for the CIA. As early as 1954, Colonel Edward Lansdale, the freelance CIA operative in Vietnam, had begun a psy-war against the northern Communists. One of his strategies involved exactly that – planting false stories of unfathomable Viet Minh brutality that would spread through Vietnam like wildfire and deeply offend American sentiments. Lansdale was so unrestrained in his fantasies that his tactics often outraged Washington. In the movie-star handsome, charismatic Thomas Dooley, who admired him, the CIA agent saw a credible, effective way to continue pursuing his psy-war, which was, in fact, quite successful. That is how the young doctor started making up stories about kids with eardrums pierced by chopsticks and so on – Dooley worked for the CIA.
Alas, in the 1950s, many Americans were ready to believe him. It was easier to embrace the conviction that everything America was doing in Vietnam was good – and undoubtedly much better than everything the Viet Minh was doing. That Thomas Dooley shared the widespread and profound American ignorance of Vietnam, its society, history, and politics, did not matter to them.
However, it should matter a lot to readers nowadays. I recommend DELIVER US FROM EVIL exclusively as a curious phenomenon and an example of pro-American Cold War propaganda. This book should not by any means be viewed as a reliable source, and none of Thomas Dooley's claims should be taken at face value.
April 5, 2020
ENGLISH: This book is about Dr. Dooley's several months in medical command of the camp for the refugees who fled North Vietnam after the partition of the country, at the end of the French colonialism in Indochina.
Later, Dr. Dooley provided medical aid in Laos and was a founder of MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), a department of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The book made me think that, in contrast to those in Auschwitz, the atrocities performed by communists are often left unpunished.
More comments in this post in my blog on popular science: Who is to blame for human atrocities?
ESPAÑOL: Este libro trata sobre los meses en que el Dr. Dooley estuvo al mando médico del campo para los refugiados que huyeron de Vietnam del Norte después de la partición del país, al final del colonialismo francés en Indochina.
Más tarde, el Dr. Dooley proporcionó asistencia médica en Laos y fue uno de los fundadores de MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), un departamento del International Rescue Committee (IRC).
El libro me hizo pensar que, en contraste con las de Auschwitz, las atrocidades cometidas por comunistas a menudo quedan impunes.
Más comentarios en este artículo de mi blog de divulgación científica: ¿Quién tiene la culpa de las atrocidades humanas?
Later, Dr. Dooley provided medical aid in Laos and was a founder of MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), a department of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The book made me think that, in contrast to those in Auschwitz, the atrocities performed by communists are often left unpunished.
More comments in this post in my blog on popular science: Who is to blame for human atrocities?
ESPAÑOL: Este libro trata sobre los meses en que el Dr. Dooley estuvo al mando médico del campo para los refugiados que huyeron de Vietnam del Norte después de la partición del país, al final del colonialismo francés en Indochina.
Más tarde, el Dr. Dooley proporcionó asistencia médica en Laos y fue uno de los fundadores de MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), un departamento del International Rescue Committee (IRC).
El libro me hizo pensar que, en contraste con las de Auschwitz, las atrocidades cometidas por comunistas a menudo quedan impunes.
Más comentarios en este artículo de mi blog de divulgación científica: ¿Quién tiene la culpa de las atrocidades humanas?
December 4, 2020
This is the third time I've read this book.
ENGLISH: This book is about Dr. Dooley's several months in medical command of the camp for the refugees who fled North Vietnam after the partition of the country, at the end of the French colonialism in Indochina.
Later, Dr. Dooley provided medical aid in Laos and was a founder of MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), a department of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The book made me think that, in contrast to those in Auschwitz, the atrocities performed by communists are often left unpunished.
More comments in this post in my blog on popular science: Who is to blame for human atrocities?
ESPAÑOL: Este libro trata sobre los meses en que el Dr. Dooley estuvo al mando médico del campo para los refugiados que huyeron de Vietnam del Norte después de la partición del país, al final del colonialismo francés en Indochina.
Más tarde, el Dr. Dooley proporcionó asistencia médica en Laos y fue uno de los fundadores de MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), un departamento del International Rescue Committee (IRC).
El libro me hizo pensar que, en contraste con las de Auschwitz, las atrocidades cometidas por comunistas a menudo quedan impunes.
Más comentarios en este artículo de mi blog de divulgación científica: ¿Quién tiene la culpa de las atrocidades humanas?
ENGLISH: This book is about Dr. Dooley's several months in medical command of the camp for the refugees who fled North Vietnam after the partition of the country, at the end of the French colonialism in Indochina.
Later, Dr. Dooley provided medical aid in Laos and was a founder of MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), a department of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
The book made me think that, in contrast to those in Auschwitz, the atrocities performed by communists are often left unpunished.
More comments in this post in my blog on popular science: Who is to blame for human atrocities?
ESPAÑOL: Este libro trata sobre los meses en que el Dr. Dooley estuvo al mando médico del campo para los refugiados que huyeron de Vietnam del Norte después de la partición del país, al final del colonialismo francés en Indochina.
Más tarde, el Dr. Dooley proporcionó asistencia médica en Laos y fue uno de los fundadores de MEDICO (Medical International Cooperation), un departamento del International Rescue Committee (IRC).
El libro me hizo pensar que, en contraste con las de Auschwitz, las atrocidades cometidas por comunistas a menudo quedan impunes.
Más comentarios en este artículo de mi blog de divulgación científica: ¿Quién tiene la culpa de las atrocidades humanas?
April 4, 2020
"Deliver us from evil" is the account of Dooley's months of medical help to refugees leaving North Vietnam with the help of the US Navy. It was a very fast read, as the book draws you in from the start.
April 6, 2020
I found too much detail in it to appear invented or propaganda writing. The atrocities of the Vietnamese Communists were horrifically innovative. Hitler or Stalin gangs matched them. These are the most difficult parts to read. I shuddered when I read some recent travelogues from Vietnam with a new generation either ignorant or oblivious to what their country suffered such short decades ago not to mention major Western politicians and trade persons doing business as usual.
February 12, 2017
I first read this book for a book report in eighth grade in Effie Cox's English class. We kept tracks of books we read on a cardboard tree she posted on the back wall. For this assignment, we had to do a speech with a poster for our review of a biography. I knew nothing about Vietnam. I do not remember why I chose this book, but many of the images stuck with me for years and the last lines which are a quote from Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." I reread the book on Archives.org. Dr. Tom Dooley was not an advocate of war as a way to solve problems, but he was a Catholic. Many of the refugees he saved from North Vietnam during the time of the Bamboo Curtain were Catholic Vietnamese and many were just trying to flee the horrors they saw around them.
December 14, 2009
amazing book
April 26, 2016
I read this book when I was in high school then read it again recently. It is a wonderful book about an American doctor who lived among the Vietnamese people. The book was written in 1956
December 27, 2019
Heart warming account of brutal times in Viet Nam 1950s. We tend to think only of the years after 1960 when we were more involved there but it was just as terrible for the people there many years before. I wrote heart warming for the efforts pot forth by so many to help but just as heart breaking for the horrific violence endured by the population.
March 14, 2023
Fascinating and harrowing story that highlights the goodness humankind is capable of. I really didn’t know anything about the events leading up to the Vietnam war before reading this so I learned a lot and my interest in these conflicts is piqued.
January 21, 2018
Tom Dooley was a medical doctor who assisted in the evacuation of refugees from communist North Vietnam to the South in 1954. He and fellow navy members did a good job. I wonder what happened to those of the refugees still alive who were in the South when the communists conquered the South in 1975.
December 6, 2019
Read as a teen. Idealistic time which helped lead to the Vietnam Nam war. Tom Dooley was writing about helping the people in S E Asia.
Read
March 4, 2020Read it as a teen....had a crush. What was not to like about this cultural icon? Until it turned out he was a fraud, a homosexual pedophile who worked for the CIA.
July 13, 2023
Very interesting read but also depressing.
October 8, 2020
A must read.
A forgotten chapter and a link to the reasons why the USA entered the War. Thousands perhaps millions of Americans would have been stirred into pity and action after reading Dooleys harrowing account.
Thank for making this book available on Kindle and putting another Vietnam puzzle piece in its place.
A forgotten chapter and a link to the reasons why the USA entered the War. Thousands perhaps millions of Americans would have been stirred into pity and action after reading Dooleys harrowing account.
Thank for making this book available on Kindle and putting another Vietnam puzzle piece in its place.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews