Reckoning Vietnam And America's Cold War Experience, 1945-1991 [Paperback]

Cold War orthodoxy provides Americans with every reason to be proud of their long twilight struggle against Communism. It begins, of course, with Harry Truman, his heroic resistance to Soviet aggression in Europe, his defense of democracy in Korea and his opposition to the disastrous influence of McCarthyism, a malevolent force injected into the bloodstream of the society by the right in 1948. Moving on, orthodoxy teaches us of John Kennedys doomed if honorable attempts to save an unsustainable ally in Southeast Asia, Lyndon Johnsons disastrous attempt to follow Kennedys path and the courage and insight of those who saw the folly before them and led America out of this singularly unjust, ill-advised campaign. Orthodoxy ends with the Wests final, brilliantly engineered triumph over Soviet Communism, which represents a splendid, bi-partisan accomplishment in which all Americans, left and right can take pride. This is all very nice if only it were true. Reckoning: Vietnam and Americas Cold War Experience, 1945-1991, is a compelling exercise in saying things that, in George Orwells words, it is just not done to say and identifying facts that have been hiding in plain sightelephants in the living room as they are commonly known. Starting with the Communist movement of the 1930s and all that came with it, Reckoning chronicles the Soviets massive North American espionage network, Trumans feckless response, his relentless obstruction of Congressional attempts to investigate these matters and his ruthless purge of leftists from the federal civil service, all of which combined to poison political discourse in this country for decades. Reckoning examines Trumans slaughterous, senseless campaign in Korea in all its folly and brutalitya campaign that led the United States directly into Southeast Asiawhich, orthodoxy aside, was a war winnable within a reasonable definition of victory but fought ineffectively and lost by politicians like John Kennedy andls'