Tag: Harry S. Truman

Latest Read: The Eagle Weeps

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date September 23, 2020

The Eagle Weeps by Lieutenant colonel Keith Honaker offers stunning lessons from his deployment to Vietnam in February 1952. He arrived in Saigon as a member of the US Military MAAG Vietnam program. His experience illustrates the repeated failures of France to defeat the Viet Minh.

the eagle weeps by Lt. Col Keith Honaker

At the same time, Lieutenant colonel Honaker invited his family to join him in Saigon. Only a select few American officers brought their families to Vietnam. Shockingly his wife Wilma was abducted by Viet Minh agents during a trip to Hanoi. Only a French officer saved her from departing a safe zone around Hanoi. Can you imagine if Wilma had been taken prisoner or killed by the Viet Minh? Certainly shocking to read 65 years later.

During his deployment, France was seeking to remove American officers from the field. Lieutenant colonel Honaker and his fellow American officers in Saigon were not even informed of the French plans for the Dien Bien Phu until after the airlift began.

Likewise there are additional moments in the book that reveal a deep misunderstanding to the early American MAAG mission. As Lieutenant colonel Honaker describes in the opening chapters, his arrival in Vietnam was like landing in another world. His experiences are very foretelling to the next for next 23 years for America.

Surprisingly, as we would later learn, the Viet Minh were preparing a very strong defense of their country. A mature network of spies including those who served American military families as house servants greeted the Honaker family upon their arrival.

Tags colonialism, Dien Bien Phu, french indochina war, Harry S. Truman, indochina, MAAG, Viet Minh

Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 3, 2019

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings is an amazing read. He joins a select group of amazing authors, journalists, and veterans who have written key histories. His insights should change the views of all Americans about Vietnam.
We are approaching the 75th anniversary of our long, slow walk into Southeast Asia. This book will give a more “stable” view of conditions in which America defended South Vietnam against communist aggression.

Hasting’s efforts will make you question long-held beliefs about the war. His access to new materials, declassified by both the US and Vietnam governments. Hastings truly fulfills his book’s title of an epic tragedy. He writes stories by famous leaders and everyday soldiers affected by three decades of war across Indochina.

His introduction of Ho Chi Minh, the war against Japan and colonial French rule during World War II helped reinforce how Ho Chi Minh would set up a revolutionary party set against the backdrop of wars across both Europe and Asia. From World War I to the Korean War, the role of Asian independence from British, French and Dutch colonial rule set Southeast Asia on a path towards war that would span a full generation. Hastings is very good at looping Americans back to events like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Tags Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Ho Chi Minh, indochina war, john f kennedy, Le Duan, Lyndon Johnson, max hastings, richard nixon, Vietnam War, vo nguyen giap, william westmoreland

Education Globalization Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Why Viet Nam? Prelude to America’s Albatross

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date August 20, 2015

It took me four years to locate Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America’s Albatross by Archimedes Patti. As a US Army Lieutenant Colonel, he joined the OSS (CIA) assigned to Indochina in January 1944, six months before D-Day. This is one of those rare books that layout the foundation of America’s role in Vietnam before the end of World War II.
Why Vietnam? Prelude to America's Albatross The strong Vietnamese opposition to French and British efforts to re-colonize Indochina after World War II for natural resources. Sound familiar? Patti provides surprising details regarding the CIA’s established relationship with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh.

This is simply a must read to understand how the CIA, US Army and US State Department established a foundation for IndoChina during World War II.

Yet for all of Ho’s efforts Patti reveals from D-Day to the dropping of the atomic bomb that old white European leaders alone determined the future of IndoChina with a second run of colonial exploitation of Vietnamese, Thai and Cambodian peoples.

Patti was able to document the original developing political structures in Asia by the middle of World War II. Patti began meeting with Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. He writes how both developed an independant and nationalist view of Vietnam’s future vs continued European and Chinese colonialism.

Make no mistake Dean Acheson established the “creation of an American world order” while Patti was the CIA officer on the ground. The CIA and State Department’s initial records on Ho Chi Minh were established in a cable written on December 31 1942 as the CIA was seeking French relations with Texaco in IndoChina.

Tags archimedes patti, colonialism, Dean Acheson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Education, Franklin D. Roosevelt, french union, Graham Greene, Harry S. Truman, Ho Chi Minh, indochina, Reading, tipping point, Viet Minh, Vietnam War, vo nguyen giap

Education Globalization Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: Embers of War

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date August 26, 2014

Fredrick Logevall won the 2013 Pulitzer for Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. This book is an amazing read. Today America continues to hold a quiet, deep divide when looking inward to find the truth regarding our long nightmare in Vietnam.

Logevall traces America’s involvement to Paris at the end of World War I. A young Nguyen Ai Quoc sought support at the June 1919 Paris Peace Conference from US President Wilson. Quoc carried a declaration addressing a free Vietnam. He never met with Wilson. At the conclusion of the conference Nguyen Ai Quoc, translated to mean “He Who Loves his Country” changed his name to Ho Chi Minh.

Embers of War

Astounding that in 1919 a young revolutionary could patiently wait 50 years for his opportunity to bring independence to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh would become (much to our regret) one of the most famous revolutionaries in history.

He led his country to defeat two western powers in a devastating war that lasted over 30 years. His cause was a war of independence against the French and then the Americans.

Interesting to learn how well Ho Chi Minh understood America. He lived in Boston and New York City. He worked as a cook, a baker and later a production line manager for General Motors before returning to Europe.

Embers of War beautifully illustrates how the US State Department shifted policy from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman. It was only strengthened under Eisenhower. It is still difficult to imagine the level of initial support in men, money and weapons we gave to support Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh against French colonial rule after World War II. It is a stark wake up to read how CIA advisors met with Ho Chi Minh and our US Army units training his troops.