2006.09.30 Update (Original timestamp 2006.09.27.00:32):

I received my copy of Triumph Forsaken in yesterday's mail but haven't had time to begin to do more than just glance through it.  It's not what I expected. It's better. Over 500 pages of hard-bound academically rigorous detail suitable for use as assigned reading -- Dream on, Bill. -- in university level history courses. Oh that we'd had books like this at UT instead of the leftist garbage I had to pretend believe to fulfill the history requirements for my BSEE. I intend to study it page by page as time permits, then make a feeble attempt at writing a review that does it justice. I won't get the job done (doing it justice) but on that point I'll take solace in the knowledge that George and Lloyd, both published authors themselves, also promised reviews in return for their copies. When I'm done with it it will become part of the "This is what Grandpa was about" library I'm gradually accumulating for Ian.

Triumph Forsaken:
The Vietnam War, 1954 - 1965
Mark Moyar
October 1, 2006

An accomplished young historian offers a revisionist view of one of the United States’ most reviled conflicts

More than thirty years after the United States pulled its last military forces out of Vietnam it is safe to say that the majority of historians, political figures, and citizens view the United States’ decades long involvement in the Vietnam War as misguided. Given the benefit of hindsight, many have interpreted the war as a vain Cold War-era conflict fruitlessly fought during a time of great anti-Communist paranoia and leading to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and countless Vietnamese. The prevailing attitude about these assumptions has not changed much in recent years, even as the Vietnam War continues to drift further into the past. If nothing else, the orthodox view has strengthened with the passage of time.

In Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 (Publication Date: October 1, 2006; Cambridge University Press; $32) historian Mark Moyar boldly turns the traditional view of the Vietnam War on its head and offers a well-researched, well-reasoned and beautifully written account that reveals why so much of what many of us believe about the Vietnam War is wrong.

Moyar challenges many of the key assumptions that historians have made about the early years of the conflict, including:

• The belief that Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh was not a true Communist but a Nationalist who would eventually turn against his Communist Chinese neighbors.

Moyar asserts that Ho was a fervent believer in Communism and would not have sacrificed Communist solidarity for the sake of Vietnam’s narrow interests.

• That South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was an obtuse and tyrannical reactionary.

Moyar asserts that Diem was in reality a very wise and effective leader. Moyar also believes that American journalists in Vietnam in the early 1960s (particularly David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan) were duped by cultural differences and, as a result, engaged in misguided reporting that helped turn public opinion away from Diem.

• That the domino theory was simple-minded paranoia.

Moyar believes that the domino theory was a valid assumption based on a sound understanding of the countries involved. As President Lyndon Johnson pondered whether or not to send US troops into battle the evidence overwhelmingly supported the conclusion that South Vietnam’s defeat would lead to either a Communist takeover or the wholesale switching of allegiances to China of most countries in the region. It wasn’t just paranoia; during these early years of the war North Vietnam and China were aggressively attempting to topple the dominos of Asia.

• That an invasion of North Vietnam by US troops in the early to mid 1960s would have started a war with China.

While most historians agree with President Johnson’s assumption that an invasion of North Vietnam by US forces in 1964 or 1965 would have likely induced war with China, Moyar shows how the evidence proves that, at least until March 1965, the deployment of US ground forces into North Vietnam would not have prompted the Chinese to intercede.

• That the Ho Chi Minh Trail wasn’t a vital interest.

President Johnson at the time, as well as many historians since, argued that the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a secret supply line that ran from North to South Vietnam through the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia, was not essential to the Communist war effort. New evidence shows how the Trail was a vital resource to the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam.

Basing his conclusions on a wealth of new material, including many North Vietnamese sources, Mark Moyar asserts that the Vietnam War might have been won during these early years, without the insertion of American ground forces, had some of these key blunders not occurred. Moyar believes that US intervention in Vietnam was based on sound assumptions and strategy and not, as many people have come to believe, wrongheaded hubris.

Triumph Forsaken is a remarkable book that will change the way we view one of the most contentious moments in US history.

Mark Moyar holds a BA summa cum laude in history from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University. He is the author of Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA’s Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. Moyar has taught at Cambridge University, Ohio State University, and Texas A&M University. He is presently Associate Professor and Course Director at the United States Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia

I and two other Dogs have been promised review copies of Triumph Forsaken. We'll have more to say after we've seen them.

Contributed by Bill Faith on September 30, 2006 at 12:12 AM in Bill Faith, Books, Viet Nam | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: 1st Cav

Long past time for the radical leftist history version of Viet Nam be countered. I applaud this author and will definitely buy this book. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Posted by: 1st Cav | Sep 27, 2006 11:07:26 AM

Posted by: Rurik

I got my copy yesterday also. First thing I noticed was they did not waste their resources on entertainig photos - but they DID have some significant maps. And almost a hundred pages of endnotes.

Posted by: Rurik | Sep 30, 2006 10:08:33 AM

Posted by: Francois

Just finished to read the Moyar's Triumph Forsaken, I am very impressed by a huge information resource of this book, a different point of view about the vietnam war, unlike the books that I had read in the past written by journalists in the early sixties. Recommended!

Posted by: Francois | Oct 25, 2006 4:37:33 AM