The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era

In the early 1960s, David Halberstam was a New York Times correspondent who initially viewed the U.S. political and military-advisory roles in South Viet Nam as a necessary stance against the Communist menace (as defined by Dwight Eisenhower's "domino theory" in Southeast Asia). But his pessimism grew during tours of the nation, interviews with American military advisors and his concerns surrounding the corrupt South Vietnamese government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. His criticism became so much of a problem to the Kennedy Administration that the president himself lobbied NYT editors to have Halberstam yanked out of South Viet Nam if his reporting continued to run contrary to the government's optimistic pronoucements. The abridged edition - to make the text more accessible to those not familiar with this history - is a classic retrospective on how Halberstam grew to question the policies of Diem and Kennedy. It also importantly takes the reader through a journey on how he had to walk gingerly through the web of censorship that is played out between the government & the news media.

Halberstam's work is a classic, outlining the dilemma that Vietnam posed to American policymakers in the early 1960s, and written in lucid, newspaper-reporting style. The author's perceptiveness is particularly striking when one considers that he wasn't even 30 years old when he covered Vietnam.Unfortunately, this McGraw-Hill edition abridges Halberstam's masterpiece. Most of the essential pieces of the story remain, but much of the rich, colorful narrative, which makes this such a fascinating book, is lost. Hopefully, a complete version will return to print soon.

Before reading this book, my knowledge of the Vietnam war was limited to the movies I had seen on the subject, until recently when a friend recommended this book to me after a brief discussion of the war, its political agenda and its intrigue. Making of a quagmire is an extensive and thourough account of the events in 1961 and 1962 that lead to the eventual full american involvemnt in Vietnam. Halberstam provides an unbeleivable and at times jaw-dropping first hand account of the political and military events of the period, and translates with remarkable skill the frustration of the vicious circle that was the american policy in Vietnam. A must read for any one with even a slight interest in the subject

If one wants to understand the debacle or "quagmire" know as the Vietnam War, look no further than this riveting account! In "The Making of a Quagmire," David Halberstam pin points all of the failures of the system years before the first official U.S. troops splash ashore at Danang, Vietnam. His account, a collection of observations about Vietnam under the Diem presidency, is refreshing while at the same time shocking in its findings. While many observers insisted that efforts in Vietnam were progressing so well from 1961-63, Halberstam sees the light. His expose of all the failings of the system includes candid words about the inept south Vietnamese leadership and the American advisors who grow increasingly frustrated with their mission. Most importantly though, Halberstam offers a glimpse into the life of a journalist caught in his own war of censorship.

I read this book when I was a Cadet at West Point. It changed the way I looked at U.S. policy.