Wehrle, Edmund F.

English

Eastern Illinois University

Eastern Illinois UniversityThe KeepFaculty Research & Creative Activity HistoryAugust 2013Book Review: Jacobs, The Universe Unraveling:American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos.Edmund F. WehrleEastern Illinois University, efwehrle@eiu.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://thekeep.eiu.edu/history_facPart of the History CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History at The Keep. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Research & CreativeActivity by an authorized administrator of The Keep. For more information, please contact tabruns@eiu.edu.Recommended CitationWehrle, Edmund F., "Book Review: Jacobs, The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos." (2013). FacultyResearch & Creative Activity. 39.http://thekeep.eiu.edu/history_fac/39reflects the western-centric world view adopted by Canadian andother officials. This perspective, however, can lead to misinterpreta-tions about the historical dynamics at play in the ‘‘Far East’’ in thisperiod, particularly the role of China. After all, the events in North-east Asia for a decade before 1941 and for years afterwards wereabout a devastating war that produced up to 100 million refugees.Recent studies of the fighting, known in China as the War of Resis-tance, suggest that 25 million Chinese soldiers and civilians died asa result of the conflict, not Wilford’s figure of 10 million (p. 13),which is the estimated number of soldiers who died. His reference tothe war as the ‘‘China-Incident’’ (p. 195) reflects the interpretationof the Japanese imperial government of the time, and he placesManchukuo in Southeast Asia (p. 103), even though it is in North-east Asia. The idea of ‘‘crisis’’ may also have contributed to some oddphrasing, including the notion that ‘‘China deserves due consider-ation as a Pacific power because it tied up so many Japanese forcesthat might otherwise have been deployed elsewhere across the FarEast and the Pacific’’ (p. 14). Japan’s attacks on Pearl Harbor andSoutheast Asia arose out of that country’s invasion of China andcannot be dissociated from that conflict.These interpretive issues lie somewhat beyond the main focusof the book, which makes an important contribution to our under-standing of Canadian diplomacy in 1941 at a crucial juncture ofWorld War II. The author frames the story with much new informa-tion, makes fine use of primary research, links domestic policy tointernational trends, and provides an insightful analysis of Canadianpolicy toward Japan in the months and weeks leading to the attackon Pearl Harbor.STEVEN LEEUniversity of British ColumbiaThe Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos. BySeth Jacobs. (Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 2012. xi þ321 pp. $35)In the early 1960s, Laos, not Vietnam, generated the most anx-iety for U.S. policymakers desperate to halt communism in South-east Asia. Both Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedyfollowed developments in the small, landlocked country closely, andboth considered military intervention. This preoccupation with Laosand the ultimate decision to seek a negotiated rather than a militarysettlement, argues Seth Jacobs in his latest book, resulted directlyReviews of Books 465This content downloaded from 139.67.65.234 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 15:09:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsfrom cultural perceptions, in particular an overriding sense ofLaotian indolence.The story of U.S. resistance and eventual acquiescence tolimited Laotian neutrality has been told many times. Jacobs con-tributes by developing the cultural side of the U.S. story, empha-sizing the contradictory impulses, willful ignorance, andstereotyping that dominated the thinking of both American offi-cials and the public at large. The author relentlessly berates U.S.Ambassador J. Graham Parsons, humanitarian Dr. Thomas Dooley(whom Jacobs uncharitably brands ‘‘a clean-shaven JoeMcCarthy’’), and others for essentializing the Lao as lazy and asa pacifistic people incapable of being roused to join the Americancause (p. 172). American officials believed that the Pathet Lao, theaggressive Laotian communists, showed a capability on the battle-field because of their contact with the even more aggressive VietCong rather than any martial strain in the Laotian character.While never detailing his methodology, Jacobs serves up somany examples on so many levels that one is willing to concede hispoint (although I have studied many of the same events and devel-opments and never particularly noticed this discourse). Whetherthis unfortunate essentializing was applied exclusively to Laotiansis another issue. Indeed, U.S. frustration with its allies during theCold War often resulted in stereotyping of the sort seen in Laos.Jacobs argues that policymakers saw the Vietnamese, compared tothe Lao, as a people willing to fight—hence the decision to abandonLaos and fight in Vietnam. Americans, however, frequently be-moaned their Vietnamese allies in similar terms as they lamentedthe Lao. Indeed, Americans intervened in 1965 largely because theSouth Vietnamese appeared incapable of mounting an effectivedefense. Vietnamization, of course, came later. In the first years ofthe war, Americans eschewed the forces of the Republic of VietNam, believing them inferior and ineffective.If Jacobs’s form of cultural analysis is novel, his ultimateconclusions are not. He echoes the prevailing view of Kennedy asa single-minded cold warrior. Following the orthodox line, he is atpains to explain away Kennedy’s concessions on Laos as anythingbut evidence of strategic flexibility. A more balanced assessment,however, should incorporate evidence of Kennedy’s skepticismabout intervention and his passing interest in expanding neutraliza-tion to all of Southeast Asia. What emerges is a more complicatedpicture than Jacobs or others would allow.Most welcome, however, would be an initiative to bring the Lao-tians more sharply into focus. Jacobs consults only U.S. sources—an466 Pacific Historical ReviewThis content downloaded from 139.67.65.234 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 15:09:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditionsanomaly in these days of increasingly internationalized histories. Insome cases, the sources are closer than one might imagine. Forinstance, the Library of Congress, where Jacobs consulted the Aver-ell Harriman papers, has ten volumes of Laotian Prince SouvannaPhouma’s diaries (largely written in French) available onmicrofilm.EDMUND WEHRLEEastern Illinois UniversityHanoi’s War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam. ByLien-Hang T. Nguyen. (Chapel Hill, University of North CarolinaPress, 2012. xiv þ 444 pp. $34.95)This meticulously researched and clearly written study fillsa major gap in the literature on the Vietnam War. The coveragein the existing literature on the two sides in the Indochina conflict isimbalanced. We have a clearer picture of American decision-making, but our knowledge about how policy was made in Hanoiis very limited. Most scholars writing on the Vietnam War tend tofocus on the question of how the United States lost the war. Incontrast, only a few historians have flipped the question by explor-ing how Hanoi won. For instance, William Duiker in his Sacred War(1995) tried to unlock the mystery of policymaking in NorthVietnam, but his account was not archive-based, and many of hisconclusions were tentative. Lien-Hang Nguyen has tapped intorecently opened archival collections in Vietnam to provide a substan-tial and highly revealing treatment of Hanoi’s calculations andmaneuvers during the Vietnam War.One virtue of this volume is its careful dissection of policydebates within the Politburo of the Vietnam Workers’ Party (VWP).Debunking the myth of a unified collective leadership in Hanoi,Nguyen demonstrates that divisions and factions existed at thehighest echelon of the VWP. She documents the ascendancy of thehard-line group led by Le Duan and Le Duc Tho, who edged out HoChi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap from nearly all major policymakingjunctures, including the decision to focus on cities during the TetOffensive. The pivotal figure who emerges from Nguyen’s account isLe Duan, the longest-serving first secretary of the VWP. Togetherwith his ally, Le Duc Tho, Le Duan established a repressive partyapparatus and a police state to consolidate their authority in theNorth and their control over the war effort in the South. Nguyenconcludes that ‘‘the Vietnamese communist struggle was anythingReviews of Books 467This content downloaded from 139.67.65.234 on Wed, 4 Dec 2013 15:09:05 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Review: Jacobs, The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos.

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Book Review: Jacobs, The Universe Unraveling: American Foreign Policy in Cold War Laos.

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