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Blackford Oakes #9
Tucker's Last Stand
Dispatched by the United States government to Vietnam in the wake of the chaotic events of 1964, Blackford Oakes and a swashbuckling mercenary named Tucker stir up trouble along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and in the Gulf of Tonkin
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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128 people want to read
About the author
William F. Buckley Jr.
184 books340 followersWilliam Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style was famed for its erudition, wit, and use of uncommon words.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 27, 2012
This book is set during the turbulent 1964 Presidential campaign. The novel deals with the CIA's attempt to stop the infiltration of the North Vietnamese into South Vietnamese territory with supplies and terrorists by way of the Ho Chi Min trail. The story is filled with subtle wit, plots and counterplots, and lessons in making hard choices. It is not the most fast paced spy book I've read ... but then I think that's because it's written in an era that was more geared toward presenting the reader with ideas to ponder along the way and not so much high-energy adrenaline-pumping action. I enjoyed learning some of the background of America's involvement in the Vietnam Conflict.
March 30, 2016
Kept my interest throughout, but overall, bleh.
May 1, 2025
Summary: Blackford Oakes teams up with mercenary Tucker Montana to block troops and arms flowing from North to South Vietnam.
The story opens early in 1964 in the jungles of Laos. Blackford Oakes has teamed up with soldier-of-fortune Tucker Montana to explore the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Ostensibly at this time, the conflict in South Vietnam is a “civil war” between government and rebel forces. But North Vietnam has been supplying men and material with plans to move 20,000 men over the Trail every month. These two men have to figure out a way to stop it, and extricate themselves before they are caught and killed, which they barely do.
Montana thinks he knows a way to stop the flow of men and material. In addition to surviving against incredible odds, he has a knack for designing devices that work. He believes he can create sensors at key chokepoints to alert when the North Vietnamese are on the Trail. Eventually, Montana and Oakes will work separately on two supply routes–Tucker on the Trail, Oakes on shipping in the Gulf of Tonkin. Both report to Rufus, their control agent.
Their authority actually comes from much higher, from directives from President Johnson, given on a naked swim in his pool. These two men are caught up in the larger events leading to the later massive escalation of the war. In 1964, blocking the North Vietnamese efforts also play into electoral politics between hawkish Barry Goldwater and Johnson, for whom Vietnam represents the derailing of his Great Society. But he doesn’t want to be the president who “lost Vietnam.”
There is a kind of ticking time bomb in Montana. He was at Los Alamos, and in this version, designed the trigger to actuate the atomic bomb. Not only that, he was on the crew of the Enola Gay. Seeing the destruction, he leaves the Army, and nearly goes crazy, taking refuge in a monastery, before returning to military pursuits, concealing his Los Alamos work. That time bomb is coupled with a healthy sex drive. And he finds a girlfriend in Saigon who turns out to be a spy. The classic honey trap.
Meanwhile, Oakes is up to his own hi-jinks. He’s equipping junks with radar and metal detection equipment. But more than that, he’s part of an effort to go inside North Vietnam;s definition of international waters. Buckley portrays it as a plot worked out at the highest levels, including Johnson friend Abe Fortas. The idea is to trigger an “incident” in the Gulf of Tonkin giving Johnson casus belli to pursue an expanded war.
Both men walk tightropes with their conscience. Do you keep your head down and obey orders? Or must one think of the larger ramifications of what one is doing? In Montana’s case, the girlfriend plays on the hovering cloud of an expanded conflict that could lead to nuclear war, raising the old phantoms for Montana. Oakes faces a situation that is more subtle. He suspects, and Rufus confirms the espionage going on with the girlfriend. But Montana is at a critical point in completing the project and going operational. They don’t want to derail him.
It all comes down to how Montana navigates the pulls of love and duty and conscience. And can Oakes protect both the operation and his friend?
Part of what makes this so interesting is the fusion of history and fictional plot. And even in the fiction, we begin to get a sense of how futile the cleverest U.S. efforts will be to stop a determined enemy. Buckley manages fiction at once instructive and diverting.
The story opens early in 1964 in the jungles of Laos. Blackford Oakes has teamed up with soldier-of-fortune Tucker Montana to explore the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Ostensibly at this time, the conflict in South Vietnam is a “civil war” between government and rebel forces. But North Vietnam has been supplying men and material with plans to move 20,000 men over the Trail every month. These two men have to figure out a way to stop it, and extricate themselves before they are caught and killed, which they barely do.
Montana thinks he knows a way to stop the flow of men and material. In addition to surviving against incredible odds, he has a knack for designing devices that work. He believes he can create sensors at key chokepoints to alert when the North Vietnamese are on the Trail. Eventually, Montana and Oakes will work separately on two supply routes–Tucker on the Trail, Oakes on shipping in the Gulf of Tonkin. Both report to Rufus, their control agent.
Their authority actually comes from much higher, from directives from President Johnson, given on a naked swim in his pool. These two men are caught up in the larger events leading to the later massive escalation of the war. In 1964, blocking the North Vietnamese efforts also play into electoral politics between hawkish Barry Goldwater and Johnson, for whom Vietnam represents the derailing of his Great Society. But he doesn’t want to be the president who “lost Vietnam.”
There is a kind of ticking time bomb in Montana. He was at Los Alamos, and in this version, designed the trigger to actuate the atomic bomb. Not only that, he was on the crew of the Enola Gay. Seeing the destruction, he leaves the Army, and nearly goes crazy, taking refuge in a monastery, before returning to military pursuits, concealing his Los Alamos work. That time bomb is coupled with a healthy sex drive. And he finds a girlfriend in Saigon who turns out to be a spy. The classic honey trap.
Meanwhile, Oakes is up to his own hi-jinks. He’s equipping junks with radar and metal detection equipment. But more than that, he’s part of an effort to go inside North Vietnam;s definition of international waters. Buckley portrays it as a plot worked out at the highest levels, including Johnson friend Abe Fortas. The idea is to trigger an “incident” in the Gulf of Tonkin giving Johnson casus belli to pursue an expanded war.
Both men walk tightropes with their conscience. Do you keep your head down and obey orders? Or must one think of the larger ramifications of what one is doing? In Montana’s case, the girlfriend plays on the hovering cloud of an expanded conflict that could lead to nuclear war, raising the old phantoms for Montana. Oakes faces a situation that is more subtle. He suspects, and Rufus confirms the espionage going on with the girlfriend. But Montana is at a critical point in completing the project and going operational. They don’t want to derail him.
It all comes down to how Montana navigates the pulls of love and duty and conscience. And can Oakes protect both the operation and his friend?
Part of what makes this so interesting is the fusion of history and fictional plot. And even in the fiction, we begin to get a sense of how futile the cleverest U.S. efforts will be to stop a determined enemy. Buckley manages fiction at once instructive and diverting.
September 30, 2024
Blackford is in Vietnam, trying to bring an end to the Ho Chi Minh trail. Surprise surprise, he fails. In fact he fails to do much at all in this novel. The title character has some smarts but gets caught up in a Vietcong honey trap. And of course this leads to second thoughts about Johnson's war in its entirety (novel is set in 1964).
Buckley is trying to do a couple of things in this novel. First, he's arguing that, despite being smeared as a "warmonger," Goldwater would likely have handled things in SE Asia better than LBJ did--and certainly no worse. Two, while not defending the war wholesale, WFB is trying to show that things weren't and cut and dried as the antiwar activists tried to pretend. Pacifism will get you nowhere.
I suppose Buckley succeeded in those aims, but unfortunately he didn't succeed in writing a great novel.
Buckley is trying to do a couple of things in this novel. First, he's arguing that, despite being smeared as a "warmonger," Goldwater would likely have handled things in SE Asia better than LBJ did--and certainly no worse. Two, while not defending the war wholesale, WFB is trying to show that things weren't and cut and dried as the antiwar activists tried to pretend. Pacifism will get you nowhere.
I suppose Buckley succeeded in those aims, but unfortunately he didn't succeed in writing a great novel.
June 1, 2018
At the time I read these novels (the late 1980's and early 1990's), I found them to be pretty good... sort of a cross between Matt Helm and James Bond. Not quite up to Ian Fleming's standards, but not quite as dated by then either.
January 20, 2025
Blackford Oakes gets to Vietnam as he makes his way through all of the Cold War hot spots as this series continues. A decent addition to the series, it will appeal much more to someone who is reading the series as opposed to someone starting with this book.
July 13, 2020
graham greene did it better in "the quiet american"
January 10, 2021
Read in 1991. Solid spy thriller.
July 4, 2021
Old school Cold War thriller.
slight spoiler below
Well-written, but the ending seemed rushed. A little preachy...
slight spoiler below
Well-written, but the ending seemed rushed. A little preachy...
February 18, 2022
An enjoyable read, I didn't realize it was part of a series when I picked it up, but it stands alone just fine.
February 15, 2026
impossible to tell which parts are false and why the igloo plan failed. interesting alt history
March 26, 2016
This is the first of Buckley's novels I have read, but it's probably not the best place to start since knowing the backstory of the on-going characters would be helpful. What I found most interesting was the view of what was going on in the Johnson Administration and in Barry Goldwater's campaign in the run-up to the 1964 election. Whether drawing from research on the events or his own experiences during them, they have a ring of authenticity. He certainly would have been connected with people on the inside of Goldwater's campaign.
October 24, 2016
Lots of behind the scenes info about the early days of the Vietnam war.
April 6, 2018
I read this book while on vacation in Hanoi. Although it's fiction it's very informative and I would recommend it both to those looking for a good spy novel as well as those wanting to learn more about the Vietnam War.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews