Fredrik Logevall

I finished Embers of War by Frederik Logevall a five star book which through a extremely well written narrative traces the lineage of the Vietnam War from Ho Chi Minhs early attempts in to gain Woodrow Wilson’s support in the aftermath of World War I to free Vietnam from French colonialism following the principles laid out in the 14 Points, but was never seen by Wilson and seemingly was meant for those of European descent not Asian or African. Ho Chi Minh later fueled by principles articulated by President Franklin Roosevelt hopes to gain U.S. assistance and recognition of a free Vietnam, which he might very well had received had Roosevelt lived but was again stymied by Roosevelt’s premature death.

Logevall in great detail goes through the failure of the of France to find a way to veer from its path to retain its colonial empire specifically Indochina leading ultimately to its cataclysmic loss at Dien Bien Phu which ultimately led to its withdrawal from Vietnam ultimately replaced by the United States. He goes into great detail at both a local level and high level of the decisions made by the France and other involved nations including Great Britain, the United States, The Soviet Union and China and Ho Chi Minh and the many Vietnamese from communists and nationalists from both sides of the conflict including General Vo Nguyen Giap, Bao Dai, Ngo Dinh Diem.

The failure of the French early on to allow Vietnam true freedom from French domination and its failure to recognize but not lost to Ho Chi Minh that war was to lost or won with the peasantry and true social reform, a lesson later repeated y the United States.

Logevall illustrates that from Truman being stymied by the sting of being painted as losing China to the Communists and being painted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and those of a similar ilk to being soft on communism. This trend continues from President Dwight Eisenhower being penned in by similar forces and rhetoric through President Kennedy and the wars escalation by President Lyndon Johnson.

The saddest point of the book is that all the lessons of the French War were later lost to the United States and the same mistakes repeated. The war that needed not to have occurred and and path which at numerous times could have been altered from Wilson through, from post World War II French policies to the escalation of the Johnson administration. A sad story of what if’s and repeated mistakes and missteps and might have been. A must read.… (mais)