Books in Brief: Ho

Ho, by David Halberstam (Random House, 118 pp., $4.95). In conversation not long ago, a liberal young lady told me, “but I don’t try to be consistent—I judge each situation as it comes along.” To see the same rule applied by a professional writer, New York Times alumnus, Pulitzer Prize winner and lately an editor of Harper’s is to understand why so many young people have such trouble coping with reality. In this sophomoric essay, Halberstam describes Ho Chi Minh as the “Vietnamese Everyman . . . pure, uncorrupted in a corrupting world, a man of the land and its simple virtues,” an empiricist preferring action to thought and debate. Without a blush, Halberstam frankly admits that Ho sold out comrades whenever expedient and once stated “all those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.” Curiously, Halberstam recognizes what some of us have said for years, namely that “. . . the decision to start the war was made in Hanoi, and that the pace, strategy and orchestration was [sic] largely set in the North.” Of course, he fails to credit any South Vietnamese with a desire for freedom, lumping them all as opportunists or lackeys of the colonial oppressors. He dismisses Diem’s assassination in one sentence, omitting any mention of Kennedy’s complicity. One point of Halberstam’s rarely admitted on the Left, though often implied, is that “. . . the military is useless unless it is totally political, and . . . political skill is useless unless there is comparable military force.” And he raises the valid question of how much injustice merits the introduction of violence. But without attempting any reasoned analysis, Halberstam contributes to the sympathy many American young people have for Ho, but not to their understanding of him.

DD

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D. B. Duval

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Ho, by David Halberstam (Random House, 118 pp., $4.95). In conversation not long ago, a liberal young lady told me, “but I don’t try to be consistent—I judge each situation as it comes along.” To see the same rule applied by a professional writer, New York Times alumnus, Pulitzer Prize winner and lately an editor of Harper’s is to understand why so many young people have such trouble coping with reality. In this sophomoric essay, Halberstam describes Ho Chi Minh as the “Vietnamese Everyman . . . pure, uncorrupted in a corrupting world, a man of the land and its simple virtues,” an empiricist preferring action to thought and debate. Without a blush, Halberstam frankly admits that Ho sold out comrades whenever expedient and once stated “all those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.” Curiously, Halberstam recognizes what some of us have said for years, namely that “. . . the decision to start the war was made in Hanoi, and that the pace, strategy and orchestration was [sic] largely set in the North.” Of course, he fails to credit any South Vietnamese with a desire for freedom, lumping them all as opportunists or lackeys of the colonial oppressors. He dismisses Diem’s assassination in one sentence, omitting any mention of Kennedy’s complicity. One point of Halberstam’s rarely admitted on the Left, though often implied, is that “. . . the military is useless unless it is totally political, and . . . political skill is useless unless there is comparable military force.” And he raises the valid question of how much injustice merits the introduction of violence. But without attempting any reasoned analysis, Halberstam contributes to the sympathy many American young people have for Ho, but not to their understanding of him.