A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath Paperback - 1986

First line

You ... you will be a pharmacist."

From the jacket flap

When he was a student in Paris, Truong Nhu Tang met Ho Chi Minh. Later he fought in the Vietnamese jungle and emerged as one of the major figures in the "fight for liberation" -- and one of the most determined adversaries of the United States. He became the Vietcong's Minister of Justice, but at the end of the war he fled the country in disillusionment and despair. He now lives in exile in Paris, the highest level official to have defected from Vietnam to the West. This is his candid, revealing and unforgettable autobiography.

Media reviews

"Beautifully written." -- William Shawcross, front page, Washington Post Book World



"By showing the nature and hidden strength of our opponents, this account goes a long way toward explaining why America failed in Vietnam despite its greatly superior military power. But A Vietcong Memoir is more than just an exposition of the revolutionaries' side of the war. It is also an absorbing and moving autobiography...An important addition not only to the literature of Vietnam but to the larger human story of hope, violence and disillusion in the political life of our era."

-- Arnold R. Isaacs, Chicago Tribune

"Literate, mercifully free of the stridencies and banalities that characterize the Communists' agitprop prose. The prose gives off an aura of authenticity and reasonableness."

-- Robert Manning, The New York Times Book Review

Citations

• Publishers Weekly, 03/14/1986, Page 0