Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

or our harrowing trip to Phat Diem, in which our driver seemed determined to set a new land speed record between the two points and thought nothing of using both sides of the road to make it happen.

Lansdale argued that the preferred way to get rid of the Viet Cong in one particular area was to use “human defoliation” in the hardwood forests: Instead of using chemical defoliants, officials should award a timber concession to a Taiwanese firm that would arm its workers. “They might very well have to fight to get to the trees so they would clean up the Viet Cong along the way,” Lansdale reasoned. The scheme was quietly filed.