Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945–1975

Award-winning journalist Hastings (The Secret War), who previously covered the Vietnam War, now revisits the conflict from start to finish; laying out what happened both in the United States and Vietnam and interspersing throughout personal reminiscences of its participants. In the process, the author corrects myths: Ho Chi Minh was not a nationalist first and Communist second; South Vietnamese abuses were reprehensible, but less than the abuses of the North, which were hidden from Western eyes; American forces were, in fact, winning the battle against the Viet Cong in the summer and fall of 1972. Hastings also maintains that the American press played a role in rousing disaffection with the war but, in his judgment, the most egregious error of American leaders was hiding the facts of the war from the people. Several individuals in this account are depicted in a negative light, especially Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who decided to end the war but still sent American soldiers into battle in order to win an election.