What if the war in Vietnam had gone differently.

My novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES IN SWORDS: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War, is a piece of speculative fiction based on the premise that the Tet Offensive did not occur in January of 1968, but instead happened three years earlier, at a time when there were far less American troops on the ground in South Vietnam, and when political instability in that country made it vulnerable in the extreme to military pressure from the North. Instead of the steady escalation over a period of years, the United States has to go into Southeast Asia with both feet if it wants to stave off what Washington sees as a humiliating defeat to Communists. This change in the historical timeline brings about an unlikely change in the Cabinet of President Johnson, among other things. My novel is presented in the form of an oral history by participants in the events of the this alternative history, starting off with General Earl Halton, who in the opening scene of the book, is summoned to the Pentagon to meet with the Secretary of Defense.

Below is an excerpt from my novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS, found on both Amazon and Smashwords:

The last place I had expected to be on the first Monday in April of 1965 was sitting in Richard Nixon’s office. I had just returned from two years in Germany as a Brigade Commander with NATO, looking forward to a posting as an instructor at West Point and watching my two children prepare to enter college; while Mr. Nixon had been Secretary of Defense for less than a month. The day before I was scheduled to leave Stuttgart, new orders arrived directing me to report to the Pentagon. Once there, I was directed to the SecDef‘s office, where I found myself across a desk from Mr. Nixon with no idea why I was there.

Of course in a larger sense the reason both of us were there was because of the ongoing debacle in South Vietnam. At that point in time the situation was this: The Communists had been watching the internal situation in the South deteriorate ever since the over throw of Diem--revolving door governments, political squabbling--and they had decided the time was right to go for broke. On the last day of January they rolled out of their bases in Laos and Cambodia, over 90,000 North Vietnamese Regulars backed up by an equal number of Viet Cong guerrillas. They sure had the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN)’s number; it folded like a cheap card table. In six weeks the Communists had over run the Central Highlands and reached the outskirts of Hue and Da Nang. Saigon was being hit by shell fire at will, almost a half dozen provincial capitals had fallen, and Highway One was in danger of being cut in a dozen places. If that was to come to pass, the entire country would effectively be chopped in half. We were faced with the worst foreign policy crisis since Korea and Lyndon Johnson’s second term was going down the toilet after only two months. The old cliché was true: we’d been caught with our pants down. When it hit the fan in Southeast Asia, somebody’s head had to role in Washington and the unlucky goat happened to be Robert McNamara. I was never sure if he was fired or just resigned, depends on whose book you read.

My book, BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, can be found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
http://bit.ly/2nxmg

Visit my Amazon author's page at: https://amzn.to/3nK6Yxv