Fredrik Logevall

I finished Embers of War by Frederik Logevall a five star book which through a extremely well written narrative traces the lineage of the Vietnam War from Ho Chi Minhs early attempts in to gain Woodrow Wilson’s support in the aftermath of World War I to free Vietnam from French colonialism following the principles laid out in the 14 Points, but was never seen by Wilson and seemingly was meant for those of European descent not Asian or African. Ho Chi Minh later fueled by principles show more articulated by President Franklin Roosevelt hopes to gain U.S. assistance and recognition of a free Vietnam, which he might very well had received had Roosevelt lived but was again stymied by Roosevelt’s premature death.

Logevall in great detail goes through the failure of the of France to find a way to veer from its path to retain its colonial empire specifically Indochina leading ultimately to its cataclysmic loss at Dien Bien Phu which ultimately led to its withdrawal from Vietnam ultimately replaced by the United States. He goes into great detail at both a local level and high level of the decisions made by the France and other involved nations including Great Britain, the United States, The Soviet Union and China and Ho Chi Minh and the many Vietnamese from communists and nationalists from both sides of the conflict including General Vo Nguyen Giap, Bao Dai, Ngo Dinh Diem.

The failure of the French early on to allow Vietnam true freedom from French domination and its failure to recognize but not lost to Ho Chi Minh that war was to lost or won with the peasantry and true social reform, a lesson later repeated y the United States.

Logevall illustrates that from Truman being stymied by the sting of being painted as losing China to the Communists and being painted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and those of a similar ilk to being soft on communism. This trend continues from President Dwight Eisenhower being penned in by similar forces and rhetoric through President Kennedy and the wars escalation by President Lyndon Johnson.

The saddest point of the book is that all the lessons of the French War were later lost to the United States and the same mistakes repeated. The war that needed not to have occurred and and path which at numerous times could have been altered from Wilson through, from post World War II French policies to the escalation of the Johnson administration. A sad story of what if’s and repeated mistakes and missteps and might have been. A must read. show less

My first biography of John F. Kennedy was a comic book. One image that has always remained in my memory is of the Kennedy family at the dinner table, father Joe quizzing his children on current events.

My family never talked about current events or politics at the dinner table. When my school friend Christine asked if my family was going to vote for Kennedy I was clueless. I had never heard of him. Then she asked if we were Democrats, but I had never heard of them either. Finally, in show more exasperation, she asked if we were Catholic or Protestant, because if we were Catholic we were voting for Kennedy, and if we were Protestant we were going to hell.

In great duress, I ran home to ask mom these vital questions. In one moment I learned of our politics, our religion, and eternal damnation.

I was in sixth grade when my teacher took told us the president had been shot and sent us directly home. All those long blocks I fretted, feeling vulnerable, wondering if the Soviets could take over since we had no president to protect us. I remember gathering in my grandparents' living room, watching the black horse and carriage as it passed Carolyn and John and black-veiled Jackie.

Every home had Kennedy souvenirs, a book, a photograph.

Over the years his image was tarnished. We doubted his authoring of his Pulitzer Prize winning book Profiles in Courage (which I unsuccessfully tried to read as an early teen). There was his multitude of affairs before and after marriage. We heard that his daddy bought his political offices. We doubted his leadership, blamed him for Vietnam.

Who was the real John F. Kennedy?

I opened volume one of Fredrik Logevall's biography JFK hoping to understand this man, this icon, this American president.

It is a marvelous study of the man in context of his times and his family, from his childhood to his decision to seek the presidency.

Plagued with health problems, careless about his person, a man of great intelligence and inquisitiveness and charm, a womanizer, a workaholic, a man of unquestionable courage, a family man who did not hesitate to veer from his father's beliefs, the real Jack Kennedy was complicated and everything you thought he was and somehow more than what you thought he was.

Believe the hype about this book. I enjoyed it as a biography and as an exploration of the times and the political process. I look forward to reading the next part.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. show less

JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 by Fredrik Logevall is the first volume in what will be a two volume biography. This is an excellent example of what a biography of an iconic figure can be, a story of both the individual and of the world within which the person became an icon.

Though a great deal of the "facts" here will be familiar to many readers who have made a point of reading about JFK and the Kennedys, there are still some new pieces of information (no matter what show more the self-proclaimed "history buffs" claim). The thing is that the new information is not really what makes this book essential reading, it is the style in which Kennedy is presented to the reader. This is about the many influences on him and his responses to those influences.

The historical contextualizing here makes for a much more holistic view of why he became who he became. The family, especially his father, influence is of course prominent but the events taking place around him also played a vital role. His privilege allowed him to witness many things close up, thus giving him a more nuanced perspective at times. That said, he still was primarily motivated by personal gain, so some of his compromises and some of his silences can be irritating. That, however, is not unique to Kennedy, there are no altruistic politicians, especially those groomed from youth for higher office. The disconnect, then, is that the reader knows JFK was as human as any of us but we also know all of the mythology around what he represented and accomplished.

If you read this primarily because you like to read about any or all of the Kennedy clan, you won't be disappointed. This is a wonderful read from that perspective. If you read this because you like history and the Kennedys are a major part of 20th century US and world history, you will be very well rewarded for you time. This places his actions within the bigger pictures both internationally and domestically. If you fall into this latter category of reader, I would also suggest two other recent books that dovetail nicely with this one (while we wait for the second volume of this biography). First is Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye. The second is The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr and the Making of the Cold War by Luke A Nichter. It was particularly interesting to read the two different accounts of the senatorial race between Kennedy and Lodge.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

"The Americans are dreaming their own dream. But they are walking in France's footsteps."

Embers of War is the last word on the First Indo-China War, with a hefty explanation of the circumstances leading to France's attempt to hold on to it's Asian colony, and the consequences of their painful exit. Conquered and colonized by the French in the 19th century, Indochina was lightly held by a few thousand soldiers and secret police when France fell to the Nazis in 1940. Vichy Indochina was show more absorbed by the Japanese, first with diplomatic illusions, and then in a sudden coup de main. When Japan surrendered in 1945, Ho Chi Minh's nationalist resistance group, the Viet Minh, declared independence. Independence lasted for a matter of months, as Charles de Gaulle's France regarded regaining its colonies as a key part of being a significant player in the postwar order, and sent in troops to enforce that decision.

What followed was the tragedy that we know so well. Ho Chi Minh was both a nationalist and a Communist, but the latter was because in the 1920s the Soviet Union was the only place taking anti-colonialism seriously. He was distrusted by Stalin, and looked to the United States for aid, going so far as to read the American declaration of independence when he took Hanoi in 1945. Truman, needing to keep France and the UK happy in Europe, threw Asians under the metaphorical bus. The hardening lines of the Cold War, particularly with Mao's victory in the Chinese Civil War, soon made it impossible to form a bridge between the Viet Minh and the United States.

France's war dragged on, toppling governments at home and increasingly becoming an American funded war, with the US providing planes, trucks, and ammunition by the tonne. As a consequence of the aid, America demanded a victory which France no longer had the heart to achieve. As villages turned against the government, and mobile columns were ambushed and cut apart, France looked to cut its losses and find some kind of political solution.

Logevall ably links events on the ground to diplomatic manuevering at superpower summits, and livens the book with a human interest chapter on Graham Greene and The Quiet American, and the book's influence on shaping perception of the war. Again and again, the basic incapacity of the French to understand the strength of the Vietnamese desire for independence, and the inability of the American government to think through the contradictions of their policy preferences to something that could actually exist, drive the war towards a terrible escalation.

The Viet Minh decisively defeated the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, but that victory was far from inevitable. Viet Minh units were at the end of their morale and endurance, and Vo Nguyen Giap learned the high costs of frontal attacks only by bloody lessons in the Red River delta. Victorious on the battlefield, Ho Chi Minh was forced to accept a partition by Russia and China, who were looking to de-escalate the Cold War for their own reasons. The autocratic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem would become the American backed President of South Vietnam. By 1960, and the election of JFK, America was fully committed to the bloody war.

All I can say against Logevall is that my electronic copy seemed to drag, but finding out the actual book is 900 pages makes a lot of sense. This is about as heavy a history gets, before it collapses under its own weight. show less