None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
Few Americans knew more about the inner workings of American  Vietnam War policy over as long a period of time as Allen did. A  WWII navy veteran, Allen went to work as a midlevel civilian  defense department intelligence analyst after the war. In 1964,  he switched to the CIA, where he served in a similar capacity  until his 1979 retirement. Allen spent virtually all of that  time in Vietnam and Washington compiling firsthand intelligence  about the French and American wars; he tells (what seems like)  all in this wide-ranging, illuminating memoir. One message  shines through this recounting of more than three decades of  American policy-making in Vietnam, what Allen calls the  "unwillingness of U.S. officials to confront reality in  Vietnam." Allen names the names of those officials. They  included the three top Army generals sent to South Vietnam in  the 1950s and early 1960s (Joseph "Lightning Joe" Collins,  Samuel T. "Hanging Sam" Williams and Paul Harkins); the  ambassador to South Vietnam in 1964-1965, Maxwell Taylor; and  Johnson administration heavies Walt Rostow, McGeorge and William  Bundy and Robert S. McNamara. Those men and many others  preferred to make their own strategic and tactical decisions,  nearly all of which were doomed. Allen makes a strong case that  the "failure" of the book's subtitle was not one of misreported  or incorrect analysis; it was of not being able to convince the  Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon administrations  that they were pursuing the wrong course in the Vietnam War.  (Sept. 14) Forecast: While this is not the less technical analysis most lay  readers will want, historians and other pundits will add it to  their arsenals in the continuing re-evaluation of the war and  its aging and departed players.Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.