Clinton's Secret Wars: The Evolution of a Commander in Chief
Richard Sale. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press, 2009. 512 pp. Notes. Bib. $27.99.
Reviewed by Mickey Edwards
When one thinks of the Clinton administration, foreign policy is not the first thing that comes to mind. Nor is the use of military force. This was the presidency that began with campaigns to reshape the national health-care system and change the rules regarding gay men and women serving in the armed forces; the presidency that proclaimed "the end of welfare as we know it," and, even more striking, the end of the era of big government. But President Clinton, a military leader? Who knew?
Richard Sale apparently knew. And in his new volume, Clinton's Secret Wars, he attempts to convince us that Mr. Clinton was, if not exactly a George W. Bush, then, albeit reluctantly, another Eisenhower.
A quick look through the book gives one a sense of on how large a canvas Mr. Clinton had worked. There was his use of force in Somalia in 1992 and Haiti in 1994, his secret plans to oust former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, the U.S. bombing of Baghdad, and efforts to combat terrorism (Sale reports that near the end of Clinton's presidency, when a working group put together a summary of attempts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, Clinton sent back a handwritten note that said, simply, "Not enough. Unsatisfactory.").
To a large extent, this is the story of Clinton's response to the ongoing tragedy in the Balkans, which occupied much of his attention in the international arena. But it is in his claims about behind-the-scenes intrigue that Sale is most interesting. When Clinton's chief of staff and old Arkansas friend Mack McLarty "proved inadequate," Sale writes, Vice President Al Gore "personally persuaded Clinton to replace McLarty with Leon Panetta." Sale describes Les Aspin's departure as Secretary of Defense in this way: "When Aspin entered [Tony] Lake's office, the national security adviser announced he had some bad news. 'What, you're not leaving?' said Aspin, concerned. 'No, Les,' said Lake. 'You are.'"
As is often the case in books that purport to tell "what really happened," one must exercise a bit of skepticism. Sale's versions raise eyebrows on two counts. The first is the absence of verification. In an opening "note on sources" he writes that because the book "deals mainly with information that is still highly classified, most [interviews] were conducted on a 'background' basis-meaning that people agreed to talk only on the condition that they would not be identified by name." Some, Sale says, told him they would deny that any conversation had taken place. Sale claims to have talked with members of Congress, congressional staff members, officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Treasury Department ("They did not want their names to be used."). All of this is understandable, but given the second caution-Sale's obvious bias-should be kept in mind.
Here is how that bias manifests itself. While Sale is a journalist, his is not a book in which reportorial objectivity predominates. He calls it "an attempt to right a wrong"-the "wrong" being an unfair image of Mr. Clinton. He talks of Clinton in fawning terms: "focused intensity and implacability," "quick and brilliant," possessed of "exceptional moral strength, tactical dexterity, and strategic skill," "inner steel," "touched by a larger spirit." Clinton's opponents are dismissed as "right-wing" and "fundamentalist." Certainly many of Sale's readers will share those assessments, but they hardly reassure one that the story is an accurate rendering.
Other faults are more picayune. In his preface, Sale writes, "I understand that there are many Americans who on instinct and principle distrust covert action. To these people, these activities violate the law (they do, or they would not be covert)." That, of course, is a silly comment: "covert" means "secret"; it doesn't mean "illegal." To begin a book on Bill Clinton by suggesting that the illegal is just fine is hardly an auspicious way to introduce his subject.
In the end, is this book worth reading? It is. Perhaps not for the reasons Sale would prefer, but it is a good refresher course on Bosnia and on the crimes against humanity that were once so riveting and threaten now to fade from memory. That's not why Richard Sale wrote this book, but it's a good enough reason to read it.
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned
Rufus Phillips. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. 384. pp. Illus.
Reviewed by Andrew Wiest
Rufus Phillips, who served in Vietnam from 1954 to 1963, first with the CIA and then with the U.S. Agency for International Development, has produced a riveting memoir that focuses on the tumultuous formative years of the short life of South Vietnam. The detail contained in Why Vietnam Matters is fascinating, especially the author's first-hand, humanizing portraits of important figures in the conflict, ranging from Major General Edward Lansdale and South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The immediacy of Phillips' position as an insider makes the book a critical primary source to the field of Vietnam War studies.
Phillips was devoted to helping the South Vietnamese find their own way, and his book presents era's events from a Vietnamese perspective that is often ignored by American-centered histories. His narrative adds depth to most of the major Vietnamese political events of the time, from Diem's military victory over the Binh Xuyen gangsters of Saigon in 1955, to the tortured tale of Diem's eventual fall and assassination in 1963.
Perhaps more important, however, Phillips immersed himself in the problems of the South Vietnamese population, working with a fascinating cast of lower-ranking officers and functionaries to provide villagers everything from mosquito nets and better breeds of pigs to viable democratic institutions and rural security. The result is an invaluable portrait of the war in Vietnam where it mattered most, to the lives of the people. Of special importance is Phillips' nuanced portrayal of the local realities, both good and bad, of the oft-maligned Strategic Hamlet Program.
Why Vietnam Matters is essentially a tragic tale. Central to Phillips' thesis are his passionately held beliefs that South Vietnam, instead of being merely an American fabrication doomed to failure, was a state that had a chance to survive and that its people deserved an opportunity to live in freedom. The war in South Vietnam could have succeeded had Americans not missed its "most influential component-a South Vietnamese political cause worth fighting for." Instead, as the war progressed, the U.S. effort there became more bureaucratized and distant from the hopes and needs of the Vietnamese themselves.
In eloquently advocating counterinsurgency and winning the "hearts and minds" of the South Vietnamese as the keys to victory, Phillips' book coincides with works such as Andrew Krepinevich's The Army and Vietnam, and stands in contrast to studies which contend that a conventional approach to the war was warranted.
Phillips, however, takes the argument a step further in extrapolating lessons from Vietnam to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He contends that the root problems of both wars are identical. Only by working closely with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and by applying the counterinsurgency lessons of Vietnam, will victory be possible.
Why Vietnam Matters is both an enjoyable read and important history, which, by shining a new light on the past, hopes to influence the future.
The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship
James Scott. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009. 374 pp. Illus. Index. $26.
Reviewed by Glenn R. Cella
On 8 June 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, an American spy ship, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5), on station off the Gaza coast, underwent a remorseless Israeli aerial and seaborne assault that left 34 Americans dead, 171 wounded, and the vessel severely damaged. Six days later, the Liberty limped into Valletta, Malta, where a hastily assembled U.S. Navy court of inquiry convened. The slapdash proceedings left many gaps and contributed to a lingering controversy. Now, journalist James Scott has helped to fill the void in his new book, The Attack on the Liberty. The son of a Liberty officer, he has used his award-winning investigative skills to add important revelations and context to the story.
The author delivers a riveting depiction of the devastation the Israeli fighters and torpedo boats wrought on the ship and her men. He heightens the impact by providing the unadorned details and then allowing the reader's imagination do the rest. As a result, one must conclude that a Liberty survivor who afterward described the scene as "pure hell" in a letter to his wife was guilty of understatement.
Scott maintains his detachment in describing the conduct of the United States and Israeli governments. His sources include insiders previously silent on the Liberty incident and numerous documents heretofore hidden from public view. He details the widespread disbelief at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon over Israel's claim that the attack was a tragic error. President Lyndon B. Johnson portrayed it as deliberate in an off-the-record interview. Scott underlines the stark disparity between what officials involved actually thought and said and the line dealt out by Washington for popular consumption.
To great effect, Scott allows the words of others to tell a tale that is as craven as the attack itself. He demonstrates tampering with the findings of the Malta court, much to the anger of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral David L. McDonald. Likewise, Scott details how Israeli diplomats bullied administration officials and pressured American journalists to kill and modify coverage of the attack. Scott also presents the spectacle of senior American officials and presidential confidants volunteering privileged information and public-relations advice to a foreign power and tells the story of the betrayal of the public trust. Scott's account explains why adamant rejection of the official Israeli explanation remains deeply ingrained and far from confined to conspiracy theorists, as some would still have us believe.
Scott's narrative makes it impossible to ignore the influence Tel Aviv and its American supporters enjoyed in official Washington in 1967. Thus, in the Liberty case, a determination not to "embarrass" Israel drowned out any inclination to seriously probe what had happened in the waters off Gaza. That decision, as Scott demonstrates, came down to President Johnson's desire not to offend Israel's domestic backers. As for the Israeli attitude, a clear pattern emerges of a government determined to act as it saw fit to protect its interests, regardless of American sensitivities.
While Scott does not ultimately resolve why the Israelis launched so vicious an attack on an American ship-only the Israelis know, and they are still not talking-he has definitively documented a story not previously fully exposed.
John Scott, the author's father, received the Silver Star for his valor during the assault and the critical role he played in the ship's survival. His son has now performed a great service to Liberty victims, students of history, and the nation as a whole in casting a new, penetrating light on one of the most disgraceful chapters in modern U.S. naval history. The Attack on the Liberty is a vivid account worthy of a careful reading by anyone interested in ensuring that painful past experience properly illuminates the U.S. government's current and future policy choices and standards of public candor.
Strike from the Sea: U.S. Navy Attack Aircraft from Skyraider to Super Hornet 1948-Present
Tommy H. Thomason. North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 2009. 228 pp. Illus. Bib. Index. $44.95.
Reviewed by Commander Peter B. Mersky, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
The 30 years following World War II saw rapid development in naval aviation. The most seminal advance was the arrival of the jet engine, which quickly began supplanting the venerable piston engine and its propeller-driven aircraft. There was a lengthy period of transition, and, indeed, the huge blades of the A-1 Skyraider swung on the flight deck for a long time before they finally gave way to the jet altogether.
Thomason has written a primer of U.S. naval aviation and carrier growth during the 1950s and 1960s, which includes a knowledgeably written text supported by photographs, drawings, and charts. He begins with the emerging culture of ship-borne attack aviation, setting the stage for the book's main focus of post-Korean War activity. There is a surprising discussion of early remote-controlled weapons that would become today's unmanned aerial vehicles. It is amazing how many mid-war and postwar designs were fielded for dive bombers and torpedo bombers, most of which didn't achieve production or fleet operations.
Thomason presents the AJ Savage, on which the Navy placed great hope as its primary nuclear carrier-based bomber. The AJ never justified that hope. Underpowered and quickly outclassed by the advancing generation of jets, the big Savage was relegated to the role of tanker and quickly disappeared. Thomason also discusses the little-known A2J, as well as the A2U, an attack version of the troublesome F7U Cutlass. He seems to revel in showcasing some of the Navy's less-than-stellar candidates that never made the grade, but these failures add to the overall appeal of this volume. Accounts of the design and development of the A-3, A-4, and F-4 examine the philosophies and service policies that generated these important, long-serving aircraft.
Thomason also writes about the sequence of carrier attack aviation following World War II. He includes iconic types as well as designs like the A-5, A-6, and A-7 that perhaps did not enjoy the same appeal in the civilian world or in their own community (no offense to veteran Vigi, Intruder, or SLUF crews).
Covering the 1990s and early 21st century, Thomason describes the abortive A-6F and the A-12, both efforts to create the new generation of carrier attack aircraft. The so-called Intruder II was no more than an updated A-6E, which quickly lost support in the Navy and congressional committees. The stealthy A-12 fell victim to a scandal that rocked the Pentagon, leaving planners and manufacturers to retreat to "Plan B," mainly bringing the F-14 Tomcat, already quite long in the tooth, to what had always been a secondary, but never used, role-that of an attack aircraft. Surprisingly, the coming years, with combat in the Balkans and Iraq and Afghanistan, were to prove how right the concept of the "Bombcat" was. And with the arrival of the enlarged Super Hornets, the F/A-18E and F/A-18F, the Navy found itself with the new generation of attack bombers it had sought for such a long time.
Strike from the Sea is an entertaining analysis of an often ill-defined, occasionally misunderstood community that has seen a great deal of successful service in many conflicts.