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Lost Victory
Washington Monthly, Nov, 1989 by Charles Peters
Lost Victory Lost Victory. William Colby with James McCargar. Contemporary Books, $22.95. This book will play a crucial role in the national reconciliation on Vietnam that most thoughtful people know is important to any future consensus about the use of force by America in the Third World. If you believe, as I do, that such a consensus involves accepting such seemingly inconsistent facts as that many South Vietnamese did not want to live under the communists and that the massive involvement of American troops in 1965 was a horrible mistake, you'll want to read William Colby's story.
This is not to say that Colby was innocent of wrongdoing in Vietnam. It was while he was director of the CIA that the agency failed to predict accurately the collapse of South Vietnam until two weeks before the event. The failure led to our leaving behind thousands of Vietnamese that we had led to rely on us, actually kicking them away as they scrambled to board our departing planes and helicopters.
But, all in all, the impression this book leaves is of a decent and reasonable man trying to deal with the daily ambiguity and complexity that characterized the life Americans led in Vietnam.
COPYRIGHT 1989 Washington Monthly Company
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
