Product Description
Beginning where most histories of the Vietnam War end, Invisible Enemies examines the relationship between the United States and Vietnam following the American pullout in 1975. Drawing on a broad range of sources, from White House documents and congressional hearings to comic books and feature films, Edwin Martini shows how the United States continued to wage war on Vietnam "by other means" for another twenty-five years. In addition to imposing an extensive program of economic sanctions, the United States opposed Vietnam’s membership in the United Nations, supported the Cambodians, including the Khmer Rouge, in their decade-long war with the Vietnamese, and insisted that Vietnam provide a "full accounting" of American MIAs before diplomatic relations could be established. According to Martini, such policies not only worked against some of the stated goals of U.S. foreign policy, they were also in opposition to the corporate economic interests that ultimately played a key role in normalizing relations between the two nations in the late 1990s.

Martini reinforces his assessment of American diplomacy with an analysis of the "cultural front"—the movies, myths, memorials, and other phenomena that supported continuing hostility toward Vietnam while silencing opposing views of the war and its legacies. He thus demonstrates that the "American War on Vietnam" was as much a battle for the cultural memory of the war within the United States as it was a lengthy economic, political, and diplomatic campaign to punish a former adversary. ... Read more

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American popular culture changed dramatically during the Vietnam era--from Leave it To Beaver to All in the Family and from Bobby Darin to Bob Dylan. In Crossroads, historian Mitchell K. Hall explores the popular culture that shaped the baby boomers and the transformation that generation wrought in movies, television, sports, and music. As he traces the evolution of American culture, Hall looks at the ways in which these cultural elements not only underwent radical structural changes but also reflected the upheaval and unrest in Vietnam era America. ... Read more

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The diverse ways that Vietnam is culturally and socially negotiating the future are examined in this book by scholars engaged in the most up-to-date social research in Vietnam, as well as some of Vietnam's most popular cultural producers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An okay book for study...
I used this as on of four or five textbooks in a Vietnam War class.It was all right, but not as insightful as he others It talks about how the war was presented in and to America, by way of certain cultural standards.Its title relates to the idea that the soldiers were perhaps inaccurately represented in the media to the common populace, but that cultural standards and expectations prevented them from deviating.They had something to live up to, so they were prisoners to that idea. On one hand it's good to see the war in the media at all, but on the other, it's too bad that the soldiers couldn't show how they truly felt.It had some good examples, but it talked a lot about film.So if you're studying Vietnam, you might be interested in this (as long as you have the extra time for it), but I think it's better as a resource for someone going into media to understand the effects that their wok have on the subject matter. You could also take the book's main premise (there's more to the war and its soldiers than what's in the media) and apply it to to other wars.It's okay if you're new to he concept but I was critical of it i the essay I had to write on it.Basically, it depends on where the reader is at on the ideas whether they will gain from it or not.If you're not interested in media or the the Vietnam War, this may not interest you in teh least.

Not What I Thought It Would Be
I would obtain this book through a local library or an inter-library loan system before making the purchase. The text addresses specific areas related to the media's reinterpretation of POW events, whether through the printed or film medium. Even though the book is full of endnotes I still found many statements or conclusions needing documentation--which he doesn't provide. Furthermore, some of the material related to the involvement of Sybil Stockdale is in error or taken out of context. Regarding VADM Stockdale: after in "Love and War" he wrote additonal books, which are not used as sources to address the development of his thought post 1973. And, leaving out the influence of Epictetus in his POW experience neglects a significant part of his story.

Stories that connect pasts to futures; civil to military
Elliott Gruner's book is destined to be a benchmark, if not a classic study of how we see ourselves through the men and women we send in to war and conflict.His appreciation for the disconnects between the realities of what POW's face and the images that media have put to them are timeless.Although it was written principally from the experiences of Vietnam, it grows in value with every media expansion in to every kind of conflict. The book holds meaning for a cross section of society:certainly the soldier, probably the corresondent, and hopefully the policy maker.Excellent, clear, scholarly work. ... Read more

Product Description
Lewis thoroughly analyzes the processes through which social reality is constructed and subjectively appropriated by individuals. Step-by-step he shows precisely how a war in Southeast Asia became a young man's reality, how Americans found themseles compelled to scrap the cultural knowledge they had been taught, how an individual went from civilian to combat soldier and back again and was flung into a cultural twilight zone. To reconstruct their world view, Lewis dips into the minds, hearts, and souls of the young men who witnessed the Vietnam War firsthand. As they tell their own stories he focuses on the socio-psychological consequences. ... Read more

Product Description
The imaginative literature of the Vietnam War participates--both overtly and covertly--in a struggle for national memory. First-generation Vietnam War literature, focusing on representations of combat and life in the battlefield, strove to give testimony, to write history. Later writings, in their range of genre and style, investigate and interrogate the very meaning of war-and ultimately reveal the deep and far-reaching impact of the Vietnam experience on the American psyche. To reflect these two stages, Philip Jason divides his newest book of literary criticism into two sections: "acts" and "shadows." In "Acts," Jason provides formal and cultural readings of combat narratives--by such authors as James Webb, Larry Heinemann, and Joe Haldeman--and explores the meaning of "authenticity" as applied to Vietnam War texts. "Shadows" looks both forward and backward from the combat zone, challenging the parameters of what we define as "Vietnam War literature." Jason brings to the fore the literary treatment of Vietnamese Americans; he explores the representation of the war in contemporary detective fiction, focusing on the work of James Lee Burke; and he raises questions of genre and canon by placing Korean War and Vietnam War fiction side by side. Two final chapters on teaching the literature of the Vietnam War make this book a particularly useful reference for teachers. As a new contribution to the contemporary debates on authority, authenticity, and canonicity, "Acts and Shadows" is crucial reading for scholars and students of American literature in the twentieth century and beyond. ... Read more

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The Vietnam War was in many ways defined by a civil-military divide, an underlying clash between military and civilian leadership over the conflict's nature, purpose and results. This book explores the reasons for that clash—and the results of it.

The relationships between the U.S. military, its supporters, and its opponents during the Vietnam War were both intense and complex. Schwab shows how the ability of the military to prosecute the war was complicated by these relationships, and by a variety of nonmilitary considerations that grew from them. Chief among these was the military's relationship to a civilian state that interpreted strategic value, risks, morality, political costs, and military and political results according to a different calculus. Second was a media that brought the war—and those protesting it—into living rooms across the land.

As Schwab demonstrates, Vietnam brought together two leadership groups, each with very different operational and strategic perspectives on the Indochina region. Senior military officers favored conceptualizing the war as a conventional military conflict that required conventional means to victory. Political leaders and critics of the war understood it as an essentially political conflict, with associated political risks and costs. As the war progressed, Schwab argues, the divergence in perspectives, ideologies, and political interests created a large, and ultimately unbridgeable divide between military and civilian leaders. In the end, this clash of cultures defined the Vietnam War and its legacy for the armed forces and for American society as a whole.

Product Description
This is a study of the history and consequences of the revolutionary campaign to transform culture and ritual in northern Vietnam. Based upon official documents and several years of field research in Thinh Liet commune - a Red River delta community near Hanoi - it provides the first detailed accounting of the nature of revolutionary cultural reform in Vietnam, as well as how those reforms continue to animate contemporary socio-cultural life.
... Read more

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The lingering aftereffects of the Vietnam War resonate to this day throughout American society: in foreign policy, in attitudes about the military and war generally, and in the contemporary lives of members of the so-called baby boom generation who came of age during the 1960s and early 1970s. While the best-known personal accounts of the war tend to center on the experience of combat, Maureen Ryan s The Other Side of Grief examines the often overlooked narratives novels, short stories, memoirs, and films that document the war s impact on the home front. In analyzing the accounts of Vietnam veterans, women as well as men, Ryan focuses on the process of readjustment, on how the war continued to insinuate itself into their lives, their families, and their communities long after they returned home. She looks at the writings of women whose husbands, lovers, brothers, and sons served in Vietnam and whose own lives were transformed as a result. She also appraises the experiences of the POWs who came to be embraced as the war s only heroes; the ordeal of Vietnamese refugees who fled their American War to new lives in the United States; and the influential movement created by those who committed themselves to protesting the war. The end result of Ryan s investigations is a cogent synthesis of the vast narrative literature generated by the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Together those stories powerfully demonstrate how deeply the legacies of the war penetrated American culture and continue to reverberate still. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What a timely read . . .
Maureen Ryan has written a book that is both a lively catalog of films/books/stories/essays about Vietnam and a careful examination of the price paid by both the soldiers who fought battles in SE Asia and their loved ones who fought battles at home.

Ryan clearly knows her stuff, and her writing is lively and engaging. I expected to admire the chapters that focused on women, since Ryan is well-known for her scholarship on women's literature and studies, but I also found the chapter on POWs and their plight thoughtful and reflective. Ryan has read all the important commentary and offers useful analysis along with her own sharp observations on the parallels between the War in Vietnam and the War in Iraq. A disciplined work of rigorous scholarship, but also a good read for people interested in the Vietnam War. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes the geography, history, climate, government, people, and culture of this small country in the southeastern corner of Asia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

"Asia is rich in people, rich in culture and rich in resources. It is also rich in trouble."
The 1966 quote by Hubert Humphrey referenced in my review title succinctly typifies the rather ambivalent American attitude towards Asia--particularly Southeast Asia and Vietnam--prevalent at the time, an attitude that likewise on a somewhat different register finds its way into this unassuming little 1966 book as well. On the one hand, "Customs and Culture of Vietnam" is a heartwarming and delightful little comprehensive intro written with loving care in a dreary age when few to no such titles otherwise existed by an author who inadvertently found herself in Vietnam and so made an commendable and relatively rare effort to get to know the place and its people better and then share that knowledge with her fellow Americans. On the other hand, the primary batch of "fellow Americans" intended are clearly members of the American military, and this book has something of the character of a crash course for them so that they'll learn at least something about their erstwhile allies and hopefully not make complete idiots of themselves. She herself wound up in Vietnam because she was married to a U.S. Army officer stationed there, and brief references and asides to the "terrorist" activities of North Vietnamese "insurgents" glaringly intrude into even the most innocuous of subjects with telling regularity (not to mention a surreal deja vu familiarity to someone reading in 2008). In any case, the spectre of war hovers uncomfortably about this seemingly innocent monument to intercultural understanding. Typically ambivalent.

All of which makes this book an excellent time capsule, freeze-framing a particular moment in history and articulating its often unspoken and forgotten attitudes, assumptions, and impressions. It's also a fine time capsule in that within these pages is a detailed description of a Vietnam that for better or worse is by now long gone. Everyday habits and customs of average Vietnamese folks along with minute and fascinating details of their festivals and special occasions are outlined with warm familiarity.The tall tales and legends that held their attention are retold with relish so that they hold ours as well. The figures from history that meant something to the average guy on the street (and after whom such streets were named) are identified, their outstanding exploits described.

The author even takes such supposedly dry subjects as economy, industry, social networks and education systems (all the bread-and-butter of everyday life) and makes them interesting and accessible. For me though the main interest is religion and literature, and the author paints a very fair and vivid picture of Vietnamese religiosity and the different religions practiced--Buddhism, Confucianism, Cao Dai, Hoa Hao, Taoism, and Christianity, along with several flash-in-the-pan new religions never and I mean never mentioned elsewhere. All of these are discussed mostly in terms of their real role in Vietnamese society, too, making for some wonderfully unexpected twists here and there. In comparison, the section on art and literature seems a bit sparse in spots but serves well as a decent overview, and I was utterly unfamiliar with many of the forms of traditional Vietnamese theater she mentions. Which is to say that this book is far more than a quaint relic. It even yet fulfills its intended purpose of being informative, even though the conflict such cultural diplomacy was meant to inform is now a bygone chapter in both Vietnam and America's ongoing history.

A look at Vietnam from the sixties
This book is a concise history of Vietnam and its relation to the US. There is a lot of geography and maps. The different Motagnard tribes are explained from the begging to their individual customs. The book also contains descriptions of other religions and cultural information from French colonialism.

Included are theater, painting, architecture, sculpture, music, and Ligature. Some legends are retold.

Even thought Ann Crawford is also a freelance photographer, there are no photographs in the book just a few crude sketches.

The author Ann Crawford spent two years in Vietnam with her army officer husband.

A look at Vietnam from the sixties
This book is a concise history of Vietnam and its relation to the US. There is a lot of geography and maps. The different Motagnard tribes are explained from the begging to their individual customs. The book also contains descriptions of other religions and cultural information from French colonialism.

Included are theater, painting, architecture, sculpture, music, and Ligature. Some legends are retold.

Even thought Ann Crawford is also a freelance photographer, there are no photographs in the book just a few crude sketches.

The author Ann Crawford spent two years in Vietnam with her army officer husband.
... Read more

Product Description

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title

Examines the cultures of ten groups native to the central highlands of Vietnam, focusing on the ways in which their cultures have been shaped by the necessity for adaptation to their mountain environment.

Product Description
More than a quarter of a century after the last Marine Corps Huey left the American embassy in Saigon, the lessons and legacies of the most divisive war in twentieth-century American history are as hotly debated as ever. Why did successive administrations choose little-known Vietnam as the "test case" of American commitment in the fight against communism? Why were the "best and brightest" apparently blind to the illegitimacy of the state of South Vietnam? Would Kennedy have pulled out had he lived? And what lessons regarding American foreign policy emerged from the war?
The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War helps readers understand this tragic and complex conflict. The book contains both interpretive information and a wealth of facts in easy-to-find form. Part I provides a lucid narrative overview of contested issues and interpretations in Vietnam scholarship. Part II is a mini-encyclopedia with descriptions and analysis of individuals, events, groups, and military operations. Arranged alphabetically, this section enables readers to look up isolated facts and specialized terms. Part III is a chronology of key events. Part IV is an annotated guide to resources, including films, documentaries, CD-ROMs, and reliable Web sites. Part V contains excerpts from historical documents and statistical data. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Complete Refernce Guide
I'd come across this book while trolling through dozens of websites related to the Vietnam War (most of which are good; some of which are terribly inaccurate).With the perspective of 25+ years since the end of the war, David Anderson is able to put together a very complete look at the war.

The chapters are clearly written and cover major issues: background; maps; American involvement in the war; diplomatic attempts to end the war; and even the impact on American culture.

The book has a very complete bibliography, as well as useful timelines and a "Vietnam A to Z."Simply having all of the statistics on the cost of the war accumulated in one place is priceless.That may make this book sound dry -- but it's not, as Anderson cuts through to key issues quickly and even provides vivid descriptions of major websites. ... Read more

Product Description
The image of the drug-addicted American soldier disheveled, glassy-eyed, his uniform adorned with slogans of antiwar dissent has long been associated with the Vietnam War. More specifically, it has persisted as an explanation for the U.S. defeat, the symbol of a demoralized army incapable of carrying out its military mission.
Yet as Jeremy Kuzmarov documents in this deeply researched book, popular assumptions about drug use in Vietnam are based more on myth than fact. Not only was alcohol the intoxicant of choice for most GIs, but the prevalence of other drugs varied enormously. Although marijuana use among troops increased over the course of the war, for the most part it remained confined to rear areas, and the use of highly addictive drugs like heroin was never as widespread as many imagined.
Like other cultural myths that emerged from the war, the concept of an addicted army was first advanced by war hawks seeking a scapegoat for the failure of U.S. policies in Vietnam, in this case one that could be linked to permissive liberal social policies and the excesses of the counterculture. But conservatives were not alone. Ironically, Kuzmarov shows, elements of the antiwar movement also promoted the myth, largely because of a presumed alliance between Asian drug traffickers and the Central Intelligence Agency. While this claim was not without foundation, as new archival evidence confirms, the left exaggerated the scope of addiction for its own political purposes.
Exploiting bipartisan concern over the perceived drug crisis, the Nixon administration in the early 1970s launched a bold new program of federal antidrug measures, especially in the international realm. Initially, the War on Drugs helped divert attention away from the failed quest for peace with honor in Southeast Asia. But once institutionalized, it continued to influence political discourse as well as U.S. drug policy in the decades that followed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

THE MYTH OF THE ADDICTED ARMY: VIETNAM AND THE MODERN WAR ON DRUGS
THE MYTH OF THE ADDICTED ARMY: VIETNAM AND THE MODERN WAR ON DRUGS
JEREMY KUZMAROV
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS, 2009
QUALITY SOFTCOVER, $26.95, 288 PAGES, ABBREVIATIONS, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NOTES, INDEX


To put the issue of drugs and the Vietnam War into proper perspective, it must remembered that only 15% of the U.S. troops in Vietnam were actively engaging the enemy and the actual definition of "combat" irrespective of the manner in which that term is being used today (that is actually a higher percentage of troops in combat than exists today in Iraq and Afghanistan.) Drug use was virtually unknown among the combat units that served in Southeast Asia. Many of the units in the rear were bored out of their minds and this was where the drug use occurred. Even there, studies done at the time indicated that 50% of those who smoked marijuana in these units in the rear areas, which included the U.S. Air Force bases, did so less than ten times. Indeed, among those who used a harder drug, less than 10% did so more than two or three times. Ironically, drug use of any kind was never a problem in Southeast Asia during the 1960's the supposed time of heavy drug use in American culture. It wasn't until 1971, that the Pentagon instituted a mandatory urinalysis program, which indicated a drug use rate of 5.5%. This was found to be due to defective laboratory analysis, however, and when the laboratory problems were resolved, the rate dropped to 1.5% which remained controversially high. It was probably inaccurate, in fact, because among Vietnam veterans 1% is the rate of those who had any subsequent criminal justice contact, for drug use or for any other cause, upon returning to the United States. Subsequent studies have shown time and time again that drug use remains higher among non-Vietnam veterans, from that period until today, than the rate among Vietnam veterans. Vietnam veterans also achieved a rate of higher educational levels, and of personal income, than non-Vietnam veterans in that age group. The mth of the drug-sotted soldier in Vietnam started in the U.S. Congress and quickly spread to Hollywood. It became a cultural norm for that period. It was, however a lie, and it remains a lie. To say nothing of a slander to a generation of American soldiers. This slander is even taught at West Point, to the future leaders of the U.S. Army that is libeled by this myth. THE MYTH OF AN ADDICTED ARMY: VIETNAM AND THE MODERN WAR ON DRUGS is a welcome addition to counter the myths of rampant drug use in America's military during the Vietnam War. Assistant Professor Jeremy Kuzmarov should be congragulated for finally separating fact from fiction in regard to Vietnam veterans and drug usage.


Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida ... Read more

Product Description

In a system that is known for its covert political style, Vietnam’s decision making process is often described as either consensus-based or simply confusing and inexplicable. This book provides an approach to understanding political decision making in Vietnam by recognizing enduring values that are derived from State-controlled education and official historical narratives.

The nation’s official historical narrative has led to the development of protected values that are called upon during political decision making. In order to secure these values, such as regime stability, national independence, and social order, officials must act within accepted rules of appropriate political behavior. The book shows that through State-run education, mandatory defense training, and membership in mass organizations, Vietnamese citizens are taught social and political ethics, and their identity is moulded in concert with this process.

Using textbooks and education to understand the underlying values within Vietnam’s society is used as the contextual framework for two case studies - the problem of landmines and the on-going threat of avian influenza - which examine how authorities frame problems, negotiate, and deal with potential crises.

This book will be of great interest of academics and students within Asian studies, but also for policy makers involved with the country and those doing business in Vietnam, including non-governmental organizations, private businesses and charitable groups.

Customer Reviews (1)

Right on the money
I was the Marine and Naval Attache in Vietnam for three years and had a first-hand chance to witness in action what Dr. Lucius has written about it her book.The author is right on the money.

Not much contemporary research of value exists today to help explain why Vietnam's leaders act as they do and how they perceive their national interests, but this book goes a long way towards filling an enormous gap in the literature. The background material, especially that dealing with the education system and its fostering of enduring cultural values that shape mental models of what it means to be Vietnamese are critical for understanding Vietnamese political thinking. This is the kind of stuff McNamara was pining for when he said that we simply did not understand the Vietnamese. Dr. Lucius' work has been a long time coming and will be invaluable to anybody who wants to know why they act as they do and not as we think they should. ... Read more

Product Description
In a highly original study, David Wyatt takes a broad, yet personal, look at the cultural legacy of the sixties through ten creative figures who came of age during the Vietnam War.Wyatt argues that it is each artist's "personal engagement" with his or her own era that binds together the achievements of storytellers such as filmmaker George Lucas, songwriter Bruce Springsteen, playwright Sam Shepard, journalist Michael Herr, writers Ann Beattie, Alice Walker, Ethan Mordden, Sue Miller, and poets Gregory Orr, and Louise Gluck.For some their work is marked by the war and concerned directly with it; for others, Vietnam represents the prevailing counterculture sensibility often associated with the sixties.Out of the experience new voices emerge--from Michael Herr's landmark invention of a new journalistic voice in his Vietnam War reporting to Bruce Springsteen's tapping of the working class decline in postwar America. The thread that ties the various genres and visions together and that which constitutes Wyatt's own critical aesthetic, is the centrality of the personal response and the seamlessness, therefore, of identity and history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

I am WAY WAY WAY LEFT of Democrats and THIS BOOK IS PROFOUNDLY PROFOUNDLY MISLEADING ON JFK AND PURE HATCHET!!
Believe it or not I am a Chomsky fan, but one that is growing more and more skeptical with age and deeper reading into Cold War History.

This book really truly bites.If you have not read a lot about Cold War history and a lot about the period 1960-63 you might find it convincing.The Chomper hereargues thatJFK was just another Cold Warrior.This is a straw dog.Certainly one can find TONS of evidence backing up that topic sentence.Nobody who was not a Cold Warrior would have been elected President in 1960.The problem is that Chomsky presents 30% of JFK as if it was all 100% in order to make the left blink at period in US history where one has to be the most awake.

The more you read about the JFK years IN TERMS OF POLICY NOT JUST THE ASSASSINATIONthe more your realize that JFK was up against a permanent military intelligence bureaucracy that was forcing his hand and actively subverting his orders at every point from Vietnam to Cuba.See the Excellent book House of War By James Carol for how much pressure the CIA and JCS was putting on JFK for a nuclear first strike.

Not a word on this by MR. ""left"" Kennedy basher!

See the incredibly important book The Perils of Dominance by Gareth Porter for long term institutional pressures that undermined the Presidents control over Vietnam policy Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam

Above all see the best book on US Cold War Policy in 40 yearsJFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.THIS IS NOT A NAIVE LIBERAL BOOK SO TRAINED NAMECALLERS CHILLAXJFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It MattersI am going to type much more about why this book is so terrible later.Just dont believe what Chomsky types about JFK anymore.Either he knows nothing, or ...... See History of Encounter Magazine in this bookThe Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters

The Kennedy Years needs to be rethought and retaught
Utilizing the declassified documentary record during the Kennedy Administration, Chomsky makes quite clear the unpleasant fact that John F. Kennedy was essentially no different from Eisenhower, Johnson or even Nixon with regard to foreign policy.

While I am a fan of Oliver Stone's JFK, this book provides a detailed refutation of many claims and assumptions the film implies.For example, the notion that John F. Kennedy was secretly against U.S. intervention in Vietnam (yet the troops remained there the entire 3 years he was in office), and National Security Memo 263 has been totally taken out of context, as Kennedy made it quite clear that he didn't want withdrawal with failure, and that the "overriding objective" was victory in Vietnam. And National Security Memo 273, the memo which essentially reversed the "withdrawal" plan noted in 263, was drafted on November 21st (while Kennedy was still alive), and signed by LBJ on November 26th, clearly indicating that Johnson was simply continuing JFK's policies in Nam.As for his remarks, he gave similar remarks to that of why Bush gives that the US should stay in Iraq.On June 17th, 1963, Kennedy said, "For us to withdraw from that effort would mean a collapse not only of South Vietnam, but Southeast Asia.So we are going to stay there", then saying, "I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw" - that's just a sample.On November 22nd, 1961, Kennedy authorized a large scale attack on South Vietnam (yes, South), napalm and "counter-terror" (U.S. terror).It's interesting that this authorization was signed on November 22nd, 1961, exactly 2 years before Kennedy suffered the fate he authorized - murder.

As well, Kennedy authorized the invasion of Cuba on April 17th, 1961, and authorized Operation Mongoose, and only turned down Operation Northwoods because he was he knew it wouldn't work.Kennedy, according to the official documents, sanctioned crop burnings, germ warfare, sinking fishing boats, etc.John and Bobby knew all about almost everything that happened, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it.

Cross reference everything Chomsky says with the declassified documentary record, which is available in book form in the book The Kennedys and Cuba, assembled by Mark J. White.

Once you learn about Kennedy's policies, his assassination, and all the conspiracies become completely irrelevant because he didn't do ANYTHING different from his predecessor and successors.He wanted Vietnam to be a sphere of influence of the United States, regardless how many civilians died, he wanted Castro to be murdered, and Cuba to return back to being mafia and US Corporation ran, and even implemented the fascist dictatorship of Brazil to take power, which they did in 1964, all of which break international law.But then again, since when does the US observe international law?

This is a must read.


Anton Batey
Anton_Batey@yahoo.com

Chomsky: the CIA's favourite dissident
Chomsky's pseudo-dissidence is revealed by, among many other lies found throughout his oeuvre, his repeated insistence upon the CIA's unwavering fidelity to successive Presidents. Where the evidence is contrary, he ignores it. Nowhere is the suppression more systematic than in Rethinking Camelot: JFK, the Vietnam War, and US Political Culture. Consider, in particular, his Stalinoid survey of the Vietnam coverage of the New York Times from October 3 to December 4, 1963 (in this paperback edition, pp.82-83). One omission, among many, will suffice.

On October 3, 1963, the NYT carried a column entitled "The Intra-Administration War In Vietnam." It opened: "The Central Intelligence Agency is getting a very bad press in despatches from Vietnam..."

Its author, Arthur Krock, proceeded to quote extensively from one such despatch, "Arrogant CIA Disobeys Orders in Vietnam", by Richard Starnes of the Scripps-Howard group. The quotes below are from Starnes's courageous and hauntingly prophetic original.

According to Starnes's source, "Twice the CIA flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge", even though one set had been brought direct from Washington. Likening the CIA's growth to a "malignancy", which he was "not sure event the White House could control any longer", the source predicted: "If the United States ever experiences a Seven Days in May it will come from the CIA" (Washington Daily News, October 2).

Chomsky was, and remains, the creation and creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. Rethinking Camelot represented the cashing of the CIA's most important dissident chip in its unending war against both genuine dissent, and JFK's memory. It is a measure of the fear, corruption and cowardice prevalent in mainstream Anglo-American academia and media that Chomsky's imposture has gone unchallenged for so long.

Mixed bag
Just finished reading this book and found the portion
debunking JFK idolators' revisionist history to be well done,
although rather long winded. The rest of the book is pure paranoia - I was alive during the Vietnam buildup and well remember the motives that led to intervention. Surprisingly,
Chomsky attributes dark motives to practically everything
the US did during those times, and virtually never touches on the motives most often at play - the defeat and containment of Communism, which at times looked as though it was going to win.
Chomsky seems to think that Communism was essentially just a sort of ultra socialism. That is his biggest error in the book:
a severe naivete about what Communism was and why much was sacrificed to ensure that it didn't envelope the planet. In other words, he displays an extreme case of tunnel vision.

Chomsky Critiques Camelot!
Excellent overview of the relationship between American political/corporate culture and the origens of the Vietnam War. In this case, Chomsky looks at the historical revisionism that clouded the discourse on the assassination of JFK. The book does not debunk the notion that a conspiracy in Dallas occurred; rather the emphasis is on how JFK simply continued (and, in some cases,expanded) the basic thrust of American foreign policy. Using mostly the internal record, Chomsky details JFK and his virulent hawkish and anti-communist ideology, a fact which Camelot propogandists attempt to hide or minimize. Once again, the point is to highlight the reality: a single political party exists today to do the bidding for the corporate sector (of which the military-industrial complex is a large component). Remember, JFK had increased defense spending and forced through a great deal of pro-corporate legislation (while also dragging his heels on Civil Rights legislation and scolding the Warren Court for its progressive leanings) prior to the assassination. All in all, another worthy contribution from one of the great American intellectuals of the 20th century. ... Read more