Sheehan also shows the greatness and shortcomings of the hero, John Paul Vann, a complex, fundamentally flawed man who is almost an intelligent, dark Forrest Gump a sinister American Everyman of the middle of the twentieth century. Sheehan uses the story as a vehicle to describe how the United States came to be what it was in Vietnam, especially how the military leadership had evolved from a lean and hungry, almost desperate group at the beginning of World War II, to the victors of that war, to the aristocratic mis-directions of MacArthur in Korea and then to the delusional, bureaucratic and careerist misdeeds in Vietnam. Most poignant was the observation that children of this era were taught to understand at an early age that the spread of communism must be stopped in Asia, because if it was not stopped here, then communism, like a great ravenous organism, would then move to Hawaii and then to the western shores of the United States. This is also a fine portrait of America in the 20s to 40s. As a reporter on the ground in the 1960s, he also provides a detailed analysis of American foreign policy in the region and the complicated cultural make-up of Vietnam, with its odd assortment of aristocratic mandarins, both communist and non-communist, dynastic vestiges, French and catholic influences and the seemingly ever present shadows of Russo-Sino and American intrigue.

Sheehan provides a complete modern history of Vietnam, from the French Colonial period beginning in the 1850s to the end of French rule, particularly the period of Ho Chih Minh’s rise to power after World War II. He lives in Washington DC.Ī Bright, Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan is an erudite, well-informed and exhaustive narrative of the Vietnam War. A Bright Shining Lie won the National Book Award & the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. In 1971 he obtained the Pentagon Papers, which brought the Times the Pulitzer gold medal for meritorious public service. Neil Sheehan was a Vietnam War correspondent for United Press International & the NY Times & won a number of awards for reporting. One of those reporters was Neil Sheehan.-Amazon (edited)

Finding his superiors too blinded by political lies to understand the war was being thrown away, he secretly briefed reporters on what was really happening. Vietnamese regime, their incompetence in fighting the Communists & their brutal alienation of their own people. A field adviser to the army when US involvement was just beginning, he quickly became appalled at the corruption of the S.

This passionate, epic account of the Vietnam War centres on Lt Col John Paul Vann, whose story illuminates America's failures & disillusionment in SE Asia.

A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan