George C. Herring

A grand delusion : America's descent into Vietnam

A landmark work of narrative history and the first comprehensive political history of the Vietnam War and the politicians and policymakers who waged it. A Grand Delusion is the first comprehensive single-volume American political history of the Vietnam War. Spanning the years 1945 to 1975, it is the definitive story of the well-meaning, but often misguided, American political leaders whose unquestioning adherence to the crusading, anti-Communist Cold War dogma of the 1950s and 1960s led the nation into its tragic misadventure in Vietnam.At the center of this narrative are seven political leaders-Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, J. William Fulbright, Mike Mansfield, and George McGovern. During their careers, each occupied center-stage in the nations debate over U.S. policy in Vietnam.This is a piercing analysis of political currents and an epic tragedy filled with fascinating characters and antagonisms and beliefs that divided the nation.

Mitchell B. Lerner, The Pueblo Incident: A Spy Ship and the Failure of American Foreign Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. 320 pp.

able to them. Chapter 7 traces limits on the potential for economic growth during the reform process when activity is shifted outside the plan. Initially, new arms working outside the plan could capture the beneats of being among the only players in their particular market niches, but as the non-plan economy grew, competition in the non-state sector also increased, thereby reducing proat rates as competition for state favors increased and as state resources were siphoned off to non-state enterprises. The overbuilding of capacity has made asset stripping more attractive than production-based proat making. At the same time, predation on arms that lack political protection is unchecked by government. Indeed, ofacials themselves are at the forefront of these activities against peasants and certain enterprises. In the concluding chapter, Lin emphasizes the increased amount of political exchange that has been part of the economic reform process—a dynamic that has been beneacial to particular agents and has supported economic growth. At the same time, because the surge of private political exchanges through competitive favor-seeking has not been accompanied by effective state monitoring, it has opened a gap between rules on paper and actual practices. Although Lin does not pretend to offer a recipe for solving these systemic problems, he does conclude that effective public authority at the rural grassroots level could help sustain economic growth and thereby demonstrate the utility of democracy. By ending on this provocative note, the book is bound to stimulate further reoection and debate. Lin has produced an analytically shrewd and empirically rich study that helps explain multiple features of Chinese economic reform experiences in ways that go beyond the explanations previously available.

Fighting Without Allies

No question has more perplexed Americans since 1975 than that of why, de- spite its vast power, the United States could not impose its will on what Lyn- don Baines Johnson once contemptuously dismissed as that“raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country.”Some Americans, scholarly voices in the wilder- ness for the most part, have had the temerity to suggest that the North Viet- namese and National Liberation Front of South Vietnam had a great deal to do with it. But the answers that most Americans seem to prefer have focused on the misuse of the nation’ admittedly vast military power. The United States did not employ its military power wisely or decisively, it is argued. Military leaders such as General William C. Westmoreland, some say, did not understand the type of war they were in and used the wrong strategy. Others claim that civilians such as Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara imposed restrictions on the use of America’s military power that made it impossible for the military to win.1