Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War

516 Pages·1981·19.158 MB·English

by  Michael Maclear

VIETNAM:
THE TEN
THOUSAND
DAYW,
7
L
1L

Vietnam:
The Ten Thousand
Day War
Michael Maclear was also executive
producer of the television series of the same
name. Born in London, he worked as a
Fleet Street journalist and in the London
office of the Chicago Tribune, until
emigrating to Canada in 1954. He became
Far East correspondent for CBC, getting
exclusive coverage of Castro's entry to
Havana, the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia, and for over ten years,
Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was first to
interview American prisoners of war in
Hanoi, and is acknowledged as the most
experienced television reporter of the war
from the West. His film of the death of Ho
Chi Minh was shown in more than eighty­
five countries, and his articles for the New
York Times were syndicated worldwide. In
1978, he became an independent producer
to initiate a television history of the war he
had covered so closely.

Vietnam: The
Ten Thousand
Day War
Michael Maclear
Thames Methuen
A Thames/Methuen Paperback
VIETNAM: THE TEN THOUSAND DAY WAR
ISBN O 423 00580 4
First published in Great Britain 1981
by Eyre Methuen Ltd
in association with
Thames Television International Ltd
Copyright,© 1981 by TOW Copyright Holdings Ltd
This Thames/Methuen Paperback edition published 1982
by Methuen London Ltd.
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
in association with
Thames Television International Ltd,
149 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 91L
Filmset, printed and bound in Great Britain by
Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is
published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
To my wife, Mariko,
who shared the preoccupation
for fully twenty years

Contents
Maps viii
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction xiii
I The First Reversal l
2 France in Vietnam 27
3 Dien Bien Phu 43
4 Early Hopes 63
5 Assassination 89
6 Days of Decision 109
7 Carrot and Stick 135
8 Countdown 151
9 Uneasy Allies 178
10 Westy's War 205
11 The Trail 236
12 Siege 255
13 The Tet Inquiry 274
14 Front Line America 301
15 The Guerrilla Society 325
16 The Village War 347
17 Soldiering On 362
18 Four More Years 387
19 Final Offensive 427
20 Surrender 452
Epilogue 469
Bibliography 481
Index 483