OUR OWN WORST ENEMY

Reviewed 5/23/2011

Our Own Worst Enemy, by Lederer & Burdick
Cover shown is for the Oct. 2006 Norton reissue.
OUR OWN WORST ENEMY
William J. Lederer
New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1968

Rating:

5.0

High

ISBN-13 978-0-393-05357-9
ISBN-10 0-393-05357-1 285pp. HC $4.95

Ten years after The Ugly American, by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, the former author felt the need to write another book — non-fiction this time — setting forth the many ways America was shooting itself in the foundational principles in Viet Nam. Indeed, as he reveals in Chapter I (which serves as an Introduction), the need was so compelling that he abandoned plans to write a more general book about Asia to concentrate on the one embattled, divided country.

The plain fact is that we blew it in Viet Nam — blew the countryside apart with napalm and HE, blew the people into the arms of the Viet Cong by winking at crooks and tyrants, blew our own country's reputation for fair dealing and our own people's confidence in that ideal to smithereens.

Near the end of the book, Lederer quotes an unnamed Army major who summed it up for him in June, 1967.

The major said, "The colonel isn't unique. There are thousands of Army guys who are advisers to Vietnamese. The Army advisers have to play ball with these crooks—or their career is ruined. Man, don't you see what's happening? These poor Army bastards have been ordered 'to get along.' It's United States policy. U.S. policy supports corruption and wrecks the integrity of the advisers. If the advisers had real integrity, all of them would expose the Vietnamese—even if they got court-martialed or kicked out. But I'll tell you, feller, there aren't many profiles in courage out here."

"And, continued the major, "there's not a goddam thing you or any other newspaperman can do. No one can do anything about it but Westmoreland, Ambassador Bunker, and President Johnson—the guys who give the orders. And them, they don't know what the score is—everyone's been feeding them a line of crap—and I doubt whether they have the guts. So what happens? We've lost the war."

– Page 217

The book is filled with incidents to inspire outrage. There's no way I can summarize them effectively here. But the pattern was one of American officials — the military commanders, the diplomats, and the Agency for International Development (AID) meekly acquiescing to tyranny and rigged elections on the part of the Vietnamese leaders and corruption on the part of businessmen and local officials.

"The United States is so dominated by its technologies and its wealth that it has lost touch with people. The United States believes it can spread democracy and maneuver politics by technology and money only. This may well be a fatal error in the life of our nation."

– Page 27

The one exception to this was the Marines' Combined Action Program, run by Lieutenant Colonel William R. Corson. His men learned Vietnamese language and culture, they lived in the villages, and they materially improved the lives of local Vietnamese — for example by installing a pump to irrigate rice paddies. Lt. Col. Corson was bitterly opposed by Vietnamese with any sort of power, like district officials, because his program cut into their rackets. Hence, the U.S. Army and American civilian officials opposed him too. An Army colonel insisted to Lederer that the whole program was a figment of Corson's imagination (page 175.) Lederer describes a few of the successes of this program in detail, and Lt. Col. Corson gives a full account in his first book, The Betrayal.

History Lesson

For a thousand years the people of Viet Nam selected their leaders by public examination. They got some bad rulers, to be sure; but these were considered to have lost Heaven's mandate and were removed on that basis. Invaders were dealt with as expeditiously.

Until the colonial period, when with modern military might the French, then the British, and finally America took over — or thought they did. In truth none of the three knew what was going on in Viet Nam, much less what the people wanted. How could they when few spoke the language, or cared to learn?

Little has changed today, it seems, but the names of the countries involved.

And today, 36 years after U.S. forces quit Viet Nam (read: were driven out), the information in this book makes me clench my fists and wonder to myself what the leaders of my country were thinking back then — or whether they were thinking at all.

However, they did have some excuse. As the unnamed major noted above, they were systematically misinformed.

"An eyewitness told me that members of the United States embassy, the U.S. military, and AID wanted to let McNamara learn only about things which would persuade him to approve their requests and policies, and withhold from him those things which might result in disadvantage."

– Page 35 (emphasis in original)

And through them, so was the country, until the dust of truth found its own cracks of entry.

"America was being deluged with propaganda praising Ngo Dinh Diem—when in reality he was reigning as a tyrant3 and sowing the seeds for a National Liberation Front victory, driving South Vietnam into civil war and defeat."

– Page 86

The organization of this book gives evidence of the passion that inspired it. Lederer sometimes repeats descriptions of events. Also, there is no index. He finished his research in late 1967 and the book was published in 1968, suggesting a short production cycle. Perhaps a better book might have resulted from additional time. But no matter; the book Lederer did produce is more than adequate to its purpose: to inform the American people what was really happening in the Vietnam War their taxes were paying for, and in which their sons were being killed and maimed. The war in Vietnam, the fraggings, the draft-evaders, the anti-war marches and the protest songs may be ancient history now; but it remains important for every American to know about these mistakes.

1 Most black market goods were displayed openly, often with the USAID markings still on the packages. Not so the big weapons. But, as Lederer found, a 105mm mortar could be had if you asked around: 16,000 piasters — about $400 (pp 95-6).
2 The siesta was a Vietnamese custom: Work stopped for three hours every day after lunch. Therefore, the American military stopped too. This particular Army major was described as being intoxicated.
3 Lederer had a friend who was the editor of a South Vietnamese newspaper. He was pro-Diem and anti-communist. One day he ran a small editorial saying that South Vietnam ought to enjoy more freedom than did the North. Ngo Dinh Diem threw him in jail; soldiers wrecked his printing press and burned the newsprint. This was "freedom" in the South.
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