Legends die hard and when this book originally came out, there still existed a legend of the golden time when John F Kennedy was President; youthful, good looking with a glamorous wife, he represented to many a time of idealism and vigor before the Viet Nam war.  Those who were with him in the White House during those famous “thousand days” wished to make sure that his image, and thus theirs was preserved for they had been called “the best and the brightest”.  They all worked hard but had a hardy manly mystique and wherever they went, people could feel their energy and purpose. But was the reality close to the legend?

Mr. Bradley has written a number of excellent histories, including Flyboys and Flags of our Fathers.  This volume covers the interesting history between the United States and China, from the time of the Yankee Clippers through the “opening of China” by President Nixon.  In this book he unveils many interesting facts such as:

• That much of the money of the Eastern Establishment was made selling opium to the Chinese.  In fact, the fortune that propelled Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the White House was based on the illegal trade of opium.
• The fabled “China Lobby” which helped to guide our Asia policy was based on an idealized vision of the average Chinese peasant wanting to be an American, believing in democracy and wanting to have a nice house with a beautiful lawn, etc.
• That due to the “China Lobby”, the U.S. spent billions to prop up the corrupt regime of Chiang Kai-shek and that he and his circle were responsible for the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars while not contributing to the war against Japan
• Finally, that U.S. Presidents, from Teddy Roosevelt to FDR to Truman were fooled by the Chinese, the “China Lobby” and their own ignorance of the world into believing that they could remake China into a western democracy.

Years ago, when China was beginning to come out of its Maoist straight jacket, and inviting in foreign capital and expertise, I was discussing the process with some Japanese engineers who had been to China as part of the investments by Japan.  I asked them how it was to deal with the Chinese, and they said with a very straight face, “they are very difficult to understand”.  I thought that if the Japanese could not understand the Chinese, woe to our business and government leaders who were making the pilgrimage to China. 

How do you write the history of a political movement which killed between 100,000,000 and 150,000,000 men, women, and children? You gather some of the best historians in Europe under the direction of the Director of Research for the National Center of Scientific Research in Paris and have them examine the archives in the former Soviet Bloc to reveal the crimes committed by generations of those who felt they could change human nature.  Instead, they tortured, murdered, deported, starved, and exploited the hundreds of millions under their control.

From the early 1960s through 1973, the U.S. was engaged in a secret way in Laos.  While President Kennedy and Khrushchev signed accords in Geneva to ensure the neutrality of Laos, the accords were immediately violated by the North Vietnamese.  The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran the length of Laos and was key to supplying their forces in South Vietnam and Cambodia.  The government of Laos requested help and the result was a group of air force flyers who volunteered for a secret and dangerous mission.  Their goal was to help the Hmong tribesmen (aka Meo which was a Chinese term meaning barbarian) in their fight against the NVA.  The Hmong army led by General Vang Pao was outnumbered, out gunned and poorly supplied.  It suffered huge casualties, and, in the end, the army consisted of boys as young as thirteen who carried M-16s almost as long as they were tall.

At the end of January 1968, during the first day of the Lunar New Year (Tet), across South Viet Nam, tens of thousands Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars attacked administrative centers, military bases and cities in the belief that they would be met joyously by the citizens of the South as liberators.