An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia
Author: Bill Hendon
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An Enormous Crime is nothing less than shocking. Based on thousands of pages of public and previously classified documents, it makes an utterly convincing case that when the American government withdrew its forces from Vietnam, it knowingly abandoned hundreds of POWs to their fate. The product of twenty-five years of research by former Congressman Bill Hendon and attorney Elizabeth A. Stewart, this book brilliantly reveals the reasons why these American soldiers and airmen were held back by the North Vietnamese at Operation Homecoming in 1973, what these brave men have endured, and how administration after administration of their own government has turned its back on them.
This authoritative exposé is based on open-source documents and reports, and thousands of declassified intelligence reports and satellite imagery, as well as author interviews and personal experience. An Enormous Crime is a singular work, telling a story unlike any other in our history: ugly, harrowing, and true.
Kirkus Reviews
A sprawling indictment of eight U.S. administrations. The charge: sacrificing American war prisoners in the interest of focusing, as Bush aides have said, "not on Vietnam's past but on its future."Beginning in 1966, write former Rep. Hendon (R-NC) and attorney Stewart, GIs captured in South Vietnam were moved north along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and other routes. Cataloguing sightings with the diligence of Vincent Bugliosi-whose Reclaiming History (2007), on the JFK assassination, is something of a companion piece-Hendon and Stewart reckon that hundreds of POWs had crossed the Demilitarized Zone by the time of the Tet Offensive, their numbers swelled by pilots downed over North Vietnam. Many of these soldiers, Hendon and Stewart charge, were used as human shields against American bombing attacks on power plants, military headquarters and other strategically important venues. North Vietnam and its allies in Laos and Cambodia weren't particularly forthcoming on all these things, but the U.S. played a dirty hand, too; by the authors' account, the prisoners' ultimate release was bound up in negotiations conducted by Henry Kissinger, "the surrogate president," who reneged on promises of U.S. aid owing to supposed violations of previous accords, thus closing off a diplomatic channel for repatriation. Fast forward to 1987, when Ross Perot traveled to Vietnam and told the foreign minister, who insisted that there were no POWs there, "Don't embarrass yourselves, I know too much." Fruitful negotiations ensued, the authors report, only to be brushed aside by the Reagan administration-even though, they claim, at least 100 U.S. prisoners were still alive in Vietnam. Hendon and Stewart, who appearnonpartisan in their disdain for governmental inaction and double-dealing, close by offering advice to President Bush to send an army of former presidents and their staffs to negotiate the release of the remaining captives. Much of the authors' evidence is circumstantial, but there's an awful lot of it. A convincing, urgent argument.
Look this: American Medical Association Concise Medical Encyclopedia or More Proficient Motorcycling
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power
Author: Max Boot
America's "small wars," "imperial wars," or, as the Pentagon now terms them, "low-intensity conflicts," have played an essential but little-appreciated role in its growth as a world power. Beginning with Jefferson's expedition against the Barbary Pirates, Max Boot tells the exciting stories of our sometimes minor but often bloody landings in Samoa, the Philippines, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere. Along the way he sketches colorful portraits of little-known military heroes such as Stephen Decatur, "Fighting Fred" Funston, and Smedley Butler. From 1800 to the present day, such undeclared wars have made up the vast majority of our military engagements. Yet the military has often resisted preparing itself for small wars, preferring instead to train for big conflicts that seldom come. Boot re-examines the tragedy of Vietnam through a "small war" prism. He concludes with a devastating critique of the Powell Doctrine and a convincing argument that the armed forces must reorient themselves to better handle small-war missions, because such clashes are an inevitable result of America's far-flung imperial responsibilities.
Economist
He tells the story with clarity and verve, rediscovering on the way some lesser-known American heroes .... Enjoyable... Informative.
U.S. News & World Report - Michael Barone
Excellent.... There are some cracking good stories here...but also some important lessons.
The Weekly Standard - Victor Davis Hanson
Fascinating reading.... The events after September 11...sadly confirm almost all of Boot's dispassionate warnings.
Los Angeles Times
Anyone who wants to understand why America has permanently entered a new era in international relations must read [this book].
National Review
Remarkable... Persuasive... Boot is an exceptional writer and his engaging style is tailor-made for this type of narrative.
The Washington Post Book World - H.W. Brands
An analytical treatment of low-intensity conflict [and]... a fascinating set of case studies worth reading for the stories alone.
Commentary
Few books published this decade will be timelier than Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace . . . . [A] fine book.
Weekly Standard
Fascinating reading...and never more timely than now.
Christian Science Monitor
Lively and nuanced... Fascinating history... Admirably evenhanded.
The New York Post - Bob McManus
Timely manual on the post-Cold War challenges...Max Boot understands. Read his book; you will too.
New York Sun
Rousing.... Notable... Important.
Slate - James Gibney
[Boot has] done a real public and strategic service.
Economist
He tells the story with clarity and verve,rediscovering on the way some lesser-known American heroes .... Enjoyable... Informative.
U.S. News & World Report - Michael Barone
Excellent.... There are some cracking good stories here...but also some important lessons.
National Review
Remarkable... Persuasive... Boot is an exceptional writer and his engaging style is tailor-made for this type of narrative.
The Washington Post Book World - H.W. Brands
An analytical treatment of low-intensity conflict [and]... a fascinating set of case studies worth reading for the stories alone.
Commentary
Few books published this decade will be timelier than Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace . . . . [A] fine book.
Washington Times
It is a great read with some very solid conclusions...an outstanding addition to this body of literature.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Boot combines meticulous scholarship with great storytelling and provocative opinions. He draws from his research direct lessons for a nation confronting the threat of global terrorism.
Christian Science Monitor
Lively and nuanced... Fascinating history... Admirably evenhanded.
Foreign Affairs
A great story and a compelling read. Boot combines a wide-angle perspective with an eye for detail.
The Weekly Standard - Victor Davis Hanson
Fascinating reading.... The events after September 11...sadly confirm almost all of Boot's dispassionate warnings.
Washington Post Book World
Readers who know him from...the Wall Street Journal will come to this book expecting an analytical treatment of low-intensity conflict; they get the analysis but also a fascinating set of case studies worth reading for the stories alone.
Journal of Military History
An entertaining jaunt through many of the expeditions, counterinsurgencies, and (insert your preferred term of art here, that the United States armed forces have undertaken since the beginning of the Republic. Along the way the author offers political analysis that hits its mark time and again.
The New York Post - Bob McManus
Timely manual on the post-Cold War challenges...Max Boot understands. Read his book; you will too.
New York Sun
Rousing.... Notable... Important.
Slate - James Gibney
[Boot has] done a real public and strategic service.
Weekly Standard
Boot's well-written narrative is not only fascinating reading...The events of September 11 give The Savage Wars of Peace an uncanny timeliness and sadly confirm almost all of Boot's dispassionate warnings.
Policy Review
Entertaining, provocative, and often insightful history...Boot has crafted a thumping good, rock'em-sock'em sort of narrative.
Publishers Weekly
As editorial features editor of the Wall Street Journal, Boot (Out of Order: Arrogance, Corruption, and Incompetence on the Bench) has a reputation as a fire-breathing polemicist and unabashed imperialist. This book addresses America's "small wars" in chronological order, dividing the action from 1801 to the present into three sections ("Commercial Power," "Great Power" and "Superpower") to argue that "small war missions are militarily doable" and are now in fact a necessity. Beginning with a description of going to work on September 11 as the World Trade Center tragedy displaced the WSJ newsroom, Boot quickly gets down to some historical detail: from the U.S. expedition against the Barbary pirates to violent squabbles in Panama, Samoa, the Philippines, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Beirut, Grenada, Somalia and Bosnia. Examples of wars "that were fought less than `wholeheartedly,' " of wars "without exit strategies" and wars "in which U.S. soldiers act as `social workers' " are decried. Each of the 15 short chapters might have been the focus of a separate in-depth book, so Boot's take is once over very lightly indeed. While America's and the world's small wars certainly seem more and more related, Boot's historical descriptions are too thin to provide a solid foundation for relating one war to another. (May 1) Forecast: Out of Order (1998) was a hit with the chattering classes and remains in print; look for Boot's regular pundit appearances to escalate with the release of this timely title, particularly as the Bush administration continues to contemplate the so-called "axis of evil" in the manner Boot advocates. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
The United States has the opportunity to establish a Pax Americana in today's world by jettisoning the Powell doctrine, named after Colin Powell when he was chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and emphasizing military deployment under limited conditions, and instead instituting an aggressive "small wars" strategy. So argues Boot, Wall Street Journal editorial features editor and author of Out of Order. Boot says that small wars, or "low-intensity conflicts," are about "the tactics employed, not the scale of combat" and that they have long been a part of the American story he in fact details several of the more than 100 small wars that America has waged since 1800. Boot claims the marines once had a small-wars manual and were such masters of small-wars tactics that, had such tactics been applied widely in Vietnam, America might have won that war. Although the political-moral ramifications of his argument as related to domestic affairs need more exploration, Boot has written a readable and thought-provoking book one that might well influence the behind-the-scenes debates over the future of military policy, as he hopes. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Charles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State Univ., State College Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
Boot (editorial features editor, ) celebrates American interventionism and imperialism, arguing that the military strategies involved in small wars of imperialism have been constant in American history and have demonstrated substantial success in dominating less-developed countries. His narrative history documents wars with the Barbary nations shortly after the American Revolution, numerous invasions of Central American nations, and the expansion of empire into the Pacific and notes that many of these efforts consisted of "low-intensity" conflicts that dragged on for years. He argues that if the U.S. had maintained the same strategy for Vietnam, the nationalist insurgency might have been successfully suppressed. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
A thoughtful history cum policy paper on the role of guerrilla warfare in the building of the American empire. No stranger to polemic as editorial features editor for the Wall Street Journal, Boot (Out of Order, 1998) has little use for the so-called Powell Doctrine limiting American soldiers' exposure to the possibility of dying in combat. When applied in Iraq with the decision not to topple Saddam Hussein's government after the liberation of Kuwait, that doctrine may have helped avoid a "Persian Gulf Vietnam," as Colin Powell said it would, but instead, Boot writes, "it turned into a Persian Gulf Hungary, a replay of 1956, when the U.S. encouraged a rebellion against the Soviets and then stood by as the rebels were crushed." An unapologetic imperialist, the author urges that America take its superpower and world-policeman roles seriously, stepping into "small wars" (Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan) to fearlessly pursue "punitive and protective missions." Along the way, Boot examines the little conflicts of the past that citizen-soldiers have not much enjoyed but professionals have gladly undertaken: here the suppression of the Filipino revolt from 1898 to1902, there a modest 1871 invasion of Korea and the occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1954. He shrugs aside the specter of collateral damage, asserting that, "although wars against guerrillas tend to be particularly savage, atrocities are endemic to all wars, not just colonial ones." More compelling is his Monday morning quarterback analysis of Vietnam, which he argues could have yielded American victory had it been fought not as a conventional conflict but as a guerrilla war, an approach for which commanding general William C.Westmoreland was neither equipped nor trained. Boot's generally evenhanded approach makes some of his more immodest proposals palatable, and serious students of foreign policy, no matter what their leanings, will want to entertain his arguments. Author tour; radio satellite tour
Table of Contents:
| List of Maps | ||
| Preface: Another American Way of War | ||
| Pt. I | Commercial Power | |
| 1 | "To Conquer Upon the Sea": Barbary Wars, 1801-1805, 1815 | 3 |
| 2 | "Butcher and Bolt": From the Marquesas, 1813, to China, 1859 | 30 |
| 3 | Empire Emerging: From Korea, 1871, to Samoa, 1899 | 56 |
| Pt. II | Great Power | |
| 4 | Red Summer: Boxer Uprising, 1900 | 69 |
| 5 | "Attraction" and "Chastisement": The Philippine War, 1899-1902 | 99 |
| 6 | Caribbean Constabulary: Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, 1898-1914 | 129 |
| 7 | Lords of Hispaniola: Haiti, 1915-1934; Dominican Republic, 1916-1924 | 156 |
| 8 | The Dusty Trail: The Pancho Villa Punitive Expedition, 1916-1917 | 182 |
| 9 | Blood on the Snow: Russia, 1918-1920 | 205 |
| 10 | Chasing Sandino: Nicaragua, 1926-1933 | 231 |
| 11 | "By Bluff Alone": China, 1901-1941 | 253 |
| 12 | Lessons Learned: The Small Wars Manual | 281 |
| 13 | Lessons Unlearned: Vietnam, 1959-1975 | 286 |
| 14 | In the Shadow of Vietnam: The Powell Doctrine and Small Wars in the 1990s | 318 |
| 15 | In Defense of the Pax Americana: Small Wars in the Twenty-First Century | 336 |
| Notes | 353 | |
| Bibliography | 387 | |
| Acknowledgments | 409 | |
| Index | 411 |
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