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A Bitter Peace; Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement. By Pierre Asselin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8078-5417-4. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xx, 272. $18.95.
A Bitter Peace enjoys real strengths but suffers from serious shortcomings. Asselin's goal is to explain why the principals in the Vietnam War-the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Hanoi)-negotiated an agreement that doomed the very peace it promised. They did so, he argues, because it "was the most expedient solution under the circumstances" (p. xi). He further argues that two essential "realities," heretofore ignored or neglected by scholars of the Vietnam War in his view, importantly inform the story: Hanoi was from beginning to end "as active a player in the war and throughout the negotiations as the United States was"; and "the outcome of the war . . . was not determined on the battlefield but at the negotiating table" (p. xiii).
On the plus side of the ledger, Asselin creates a usable, well-written narrative of a complex story. Despite many temptations, the author exercises commendable discipline and stays with his topic-the negotiations-and in the main gets the story straight. That's not been done before. The...