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In a new and updated second edition, this book--first published in 1983--provides a detailed review of the end of the Vietnam War. Drawing on the author's eyewitness reporting and extensive research, the book relies on carefully reported facts, not partisan myths, to reconstruct the war's last years and harrowing final months. The catastrophic suffering those events brought to ordinary Vietnamese civilians and soldiers is vividly portrayed. The largely unremembered wars in Cambodia and Laos are examined as well, while new material in an updated final chapter points out troubling parallels between the Vietnam War and America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
List of contents
Table of ContentsPreface to the New Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Part I: The Peace
Chronology
Chapter¿ 1.¿"This war will never end": January 28, 1973
Chapter¿ 2.¿The Paris Agreement
Chapter¿ 3.¿Ceasefire
Chapter¿ 4.¿"An army with a country": Thieu's Vietnam
Chapter 5.¿The Americans Leave (1)
Part II: The Pawns
Chronology
Chapter 6.¿Laos: The Kingdom of Lane-xang
Chapter 7.¿Cambodia: "The land is broken"
Chapter 8.¿Fall of the Khmer Republic
Part III: The Fall
Chronology
Chapter¿ 9.¿"A broken sword"
Chapter 10.¿Collapse
Chapter 11.¿"It is like an avalanche"
Chapter 12.¿"Your mission is very heavy"
Chapter 13.¿The Fall of Saigon
Chapter 14.¿The Limits of Credibility
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Arnold R. Isaacs, freelance writer and educator, reported on the closing years of the Vietnam war during six years in Asia as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Following his career in daily journalism, he continued to travel widely as a teacher and international journalism trainer. He lives in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
Summary
In its revised and expanded second edition, this book provides a detailed review of the end of Vietnam War, showing the effects of reduced military aid to South Vietnam from 1972 to the Fall of Saigon. Drawing on the author’s eyewitness reporting and extensive research, the war’s harrowing final months are depicted.
