The Year of the Monkey
William W.
Lewis.
Reviewed by
Amitrajeet A. Batabyal
The
Tet offensive was a military campaign conducted almost entirely in the
first
half of 1968 by the combined forces of the National Front for the
Liberation of
South Vietnam (the NLF or Viet Cong) and the People's Army of Vietnam
(PAVN or
the North Vietnamese Army). The primary objective of this campaign was
to
strike civilian and military command and control centers throughout
South
Vietnam and to spark a general uprising among the people that would
eventually
topple the government in Saigon and thereby end the Vietnam war in a
single
blow. The campaign got its name from the fact that it commenced in the
early
morning hours of January 31, the start of Tet Nguyen Dan or
the lunar
new year. The NLF-PAVN led offensive was both well coordinated and
countrywide
in scope. Although the initial NLF-PAVN attacks surprised the allied
forces,
these initial attacks were quickly and successfully repulsed. As a
result, the
Tet offensive eventually resulted in a major military defeat for the
communist
forces. Even so, the fighting associated with this military campaign
was
ferocious---particularly in the old city of Hue---and the Tet Offensive
resulted in a psychological victory for the communists because it
shocked both
the American administration and the American public who had, up until
then,
believed that the communist forces were incapable of launching such a
massive
military offensive.
The
Phoenix program was an intelligence gathering and internal security
operation designed
and run by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in
cooperation with
the South Vietnamese security apparatus. The Tet offensive of 1968
demonstrated
the salience of the Viet Cong infrastructure and, as such, beginning in
1968,
the Phoenix program kicked into high gear. The principal purpose of
this
program was to identify and neutralize---using whatever means
necessary---the
civilian infrastructure supporting the NLF or Viet Cong insurgency.
In The
Year of the Monkey, author William Lewis uses the backdrop of the
Tet
offensive and the Phoenix program to tell the story of the
interconnected lives
of four individuals. These four individuals are Marine Sergeant Michael
Warner,
CIA regional supervisor Frank Monin, Associated Press journalist Wally
Brumsfield, and a barber at the American base in Phu Bai Tran Van Ky.
Michael
Warner barely survived his first tour of duty in Vietnam and hence it
would
seem that he would have all the reasons in the world for not coming
back to
Vietnam. Yet, he does return to Vietnam for a second tour. Frank Monin
has been
in Vietnam for over five years and, in the aftermath of the Tet
offensive, it
is his turn to implement portions of the Phoenix program, a program he
hopes
dearly will succeed. Wally Brumsfield is a former Marine and an
experienced
journalist who appears to have a penchant for latching on to big
stories.
Finally, Tran Van Ky is nominally a barber but in actuality a very
effective
double agent who is planning a Tet surprise for the Americans but who
also
desperately needs the Americans to get his family and hopefully himself
out of
Vietnam.
The
author skillfully weaves the individual experiences of the above
mentioned four
individuals into a seamless narrative about the Vietnam war. This
narrative is
fast paced and it also rightly forces the reader to contemplate the
purpose,
the conduct, and the eventual outcome of wars. The language used in
this book
by the author is coarse but the author does a good job of chronicling
what war
means not only to the above mentioned four individuals but also to
American
soldiers who are quite frequently mere teenagers. The author shows with
considerable acumen how young American recruits who are like fresh snow
upon
their arrival in Vietnam soon turn into savage killers capable of acts
of
intense brutality. At the same time, he presents the NLF-PAVN
perspective on
matters and he does an admirable job of delineating the trials and
tribulations
confronting the double agent Tran Van Ky whose love for his country is
trumped
only by his love for his own family.
Let me conclude this
review with the following four observations. First, the language used
by the
author in this book is certainly not for the faint hearted. Even so,
this
language is not out of place and, on more than one occasion, it helps
the
reader get an accurate perspective on the thinking of the principal
cast of
characters. Second, this book would have profited from the inclusion of
a map
highlighting the locations of the places that are routinely mentioned
by the
author in the course of his story-telling. Third, a more elaborate
discussion
of the motives for Tran Van Ky becoming a double agent would have been
helpful.
Finally, the above caveats notwithstanding, I would be remiss in my
duties if I
did not clearly state that this book provides a compelling and
insightful
account of events that occurred four decades ago but which---given
recent
happenings in Iraq and Iran---have considerable relevance in
contemporary times
as well.