Vietnam War Collection: books plus

[davidbfpo]

The actual title of this BBC article is 'Viewpoint: Could one man have shortened the Vietnam War?', but I fear having Vietnam in the title may put (American) readers off:

Konrad Kellen was an unknown defence analyst who might have changed the course of the Vietnam War if only people had listened to him....in the early 1960s, he joined the Rand Corporation, .... And there he faced the greatest challenge of his career - the Vietnam Motivation and Morale Project.

How often do we read and learn this happens?

..the Pentagon didn't know anything about the North Vietnamese. They knew nothing about Vietnamese culture, Vietnamese history, Vietnamese language. It was just this little speck in the world, in their view.

Listening is hard because the more you listen, the more unsettling the world becomes. It's a lot easier just to place your hands over your ears and not listen at all......Kellen said that the Vietcong were not giving up and were not demoralised. It was not, he said, a battle the US could win - not today, not tomorrow and not the day after tomorrow.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23037957