The Arnheiter Affair

New York: Random House, 1971. Second Printing. Hardcover. good. 304, illus., endpaper maps, appendices, soiling to fore-edge, some soiling and scuffing to boards. Cornelius Mahoney "Neil" Sheehan (born October 27, 1936) is an American journalist. As a reporter for The New York Times in 1971, Sheehan obtained the classified Pentagon Papers from Daniel Ellsberg. His series of articles revealed a secret United States Department of Defense history of the Vietnam War and led to a US Supreme Court case, New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), when the United States government failed to halt publication. He received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his 1988 book A Bright Shining Lie, about the life of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Derived from a Kirkus review: In March 1966, Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, captain of the USS Vance, a patrol ship stationed off the South Vietnam coast, was relieved of his command by naval authorities after only 99 days, charged with demoralizing his crew, reckless military judgment, and general lack of integrity. Arnheiter -- a man of 42 with a romantic sense of nautical history-- vigorously contested the dismissal at hearings and in the press, countercharging that he was the victim of an ingenious mutiny led by conspiratorial subordinates who were hippie-type degenerates opposed to the war and that, moreover, he was being keelhauled by a "cowardly" naval bureaucracy acting on the basis of malicious rumor and falsehood. Enter reporter Sheehan, late of l'affaire Pentagon Papers, who initially covered the Arnheiter story for the Times and became so engrossed with the contradictions of the case that he subsequently spent about three months investigating the episode. Was Arnheiter a real-life Captain Queeg? Or was he an innocent, casual sacrifice to an impersonal military? Or was he victimized by an anti-war cabal of mutinous officers? Sheehan's impartial dig into the facts finds Arnheiter guilty and exonerates both the Navy and the men of the Vance. Arnheiter, who enjoyed playing war, fed his superiors false reports; he coerced his executive officer into recommending him for an undeserved medal; he made neurotic demands on his men and officers, driving them to the breaking point with moral-guidance lectures, bizarre accusations, puritan demands (a white toilet seat), fickle orders. Sheehan tells it like a good Times man should -- thoroughly, competently, fairly.