Marigold
The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Marigold presents the first rigorously documented, in-depth story of one of the Vietnam War's last great mysteries: the secret peace initiative, codenamed "Marigold," that sought to end the war in 1966. The initiative failed, the war dragged on for another seven years, and this episode sank into history as an unresolved controversy. Antiwar critics claimed President Johnson had bungled (or, worse, deliberately sabotaged) a breakthrough by bombing Hanoi on the eve of a planned secret U.S.-North Vietnamese encounter in Poland. Yet, LBJ and top aides angrily insisted that Poland never had authority to arrange direct talks and Hanoi was not ready to negotiate.
This book uses new evidence from long hidden communist sources to show that, in fact, Poland was authorized by Hanoi to open direct contacts and that Hanoi had committed to entering talks with Washington. It reveals LBJ's personal role in bombing Hanoi as he utterly disregarded the pleas of both the Polish and his own senior advisors. The historical implications of missing this opportunity are immense: Marigold might have ended the war years earlier, saving thousands of lives, and dramatically changed U.S. political history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Operation Marigold is typically treated as little more than a footnote to the American war in Vietnam, but cold war historian Hershberg, of George Washington University, unalterably changes that view. This book delves into every aspect of Operation Marigold, a failed secret mission led by Polish diplomat Janusz Lewandowski, to set up peace negotiations between the U.S. and North Vietnam in the last weeks of 1966. The conventional wisdom was that the presumptive talks had little chance of success, since both sides believed they could prevail militarily and had no reason to talk, which is what President Johnson claimed to his dying day. Based on his reading of newly released documents and primary sources including his own interviews with Lewandowski Hershberg shows that Johnson's decision to resume bombing Hanoi after a five-month pause caused the collapse of the talks before they began. Hershberg also convincingly shows that the Poles (along with Italian diplomats) had authorization from the Vietnamese Communists to approach the Americans to start peace talks something Johnson and his supporters argued was not the case. This is a well-written, in-depth look at the facts of a controversial and convoluted peace effort that could have significantly altered the course of the Vietnam War. Maps, photos.
