‘Hue 1968,’ written by Mark Bowden
America’s long and divisive war in Vietnam was based on misunderstanding, conducted behind lies, and ended in a humiliating defeat that haunts us still. Mark Bowden’s searing “Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam” takes us into the bloodiest battle of that bitter conflict, tracking Americans and Vietnamese as they fought.
During the Tet Offensive, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had quickly overrun Hue, a city of French Colonial buildings and royal palaces. They dug in, raised their flag atop the walled Citadel, and tried unsuccessfully to rally civilians to their cause. A U.S. military compound had held on but was cut off. It took Marines, soldiers and Navy warships 24 harrowing days to recapture Hue, and by then most of the nation’s cultural center was in ruins. Bowden estimates more than 10,000 people died, including 250 U.S. military personnel. Bowden revisits the historic battle with the same character-driven reporting that made his “Black Hawk Down” a bestseller. He lends a sympathetic ear to surviving soldiers on both sides, as well as guerrillas and civilians, and gives a vivid account of cruelty, courage, cowardice, heroism and slaughter.
After Hue, the political fallout was so sharp that President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to run for reelection. Sadly, the bloodletting, and the lies, would only intensify under President Richard M. Nixon. Mark Bowden at the L.A. Times Festival of Books: Panel, Looking at Other Places, with memoirist and veteran Matt Young (“Eat the Apple”) and two journalists: Amy Wilentz (“Farewell, Fred Voodoo”) and Jessica Yu (“Garden of the Lost and Abandoned”) at 11 a.m. April 21 in Seely G. Mudd room 124.