Spies, advisors, and grunts: Film portrayals of counterinsurgency in Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam was a complex conflict, which historians and political scientists have struggled to understand. Some of the bitterest disputes in the historiography revolve around the US approach to counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Many different facets of the war have received the attention of filmmakers, and an examination of their work suggests new ways of thinking about the conflict. This article considers film portrayals of three phases of the Vietnam War – firstly, the early period of ‘political action’, then the advisory period, and finally the Americanization of the war after 1965. It suggests that by examining the experiences of participants in each of these phases, Vietnam War cinema helps to illustrate the problems that faced various American approaches to counterinsurgency in the conflict. Combined with the importance of films in determining popular perceptions of both historical conflicts and counterinsurgency in general, it suggests that they are worthy subjects of study and critique.

Keywords::

• counterinsurgency
• Vietnam War
• Ngo Dinh Diem
• Special Forces
• US military
• nation-building
• hearts and minds
• covert action

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1.Summers, American Strategy in Vietnam, 53.

^2.Herrington, Silence was a Weapon, xiv.

^3.O'Brien, The Things They Carried, 179.

^4.Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 14.

^5.Greene, Ways of Escape, 163.

^6. Ibid., 164.

^7. Zadie Smith, ‘Introduction’ in Greene, The Quiet American, viii–ix.

^8.Greene, The Quiet American, 168.

^9. Greene cited in Lewis, ‘The Third Force’, 478.

^10. Ibid., 482.

^11.Nashel, Edward Lansdale's Cold War.

^12.Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie, 138–141.

^13.Morgan, The Vietnam Lobby, 1–14.

^14.Ahern, CIA and the House of Ngo, 1–58; ‘Excerpt from Lansdale Team's Report’; Prados, Safe for Democracy, 141–144; Transcript of Interview with Edward Geary Lansdale.

^15.Ahern, CIA and the Generals, 50–58, 100–102.

^16.Cosmas, MACV, 11.

^17. Though glorifying the Green Berets, whom Moore admired, the book itself carried an anti-war message, especially as it criticized the hearts and minds approach to winning the war, and it cast the South Vietnamese in mostly negative terms.

^18.Moore, The Green Berets, xii–xiv; Shaw, Hollywood's Cold War, 211–212.

^19. An A-Team consisted of 12-men led by a captain. A B-Team was the controlling entity for approximately 10 A-Teams. In Vietnam, there were 4 B-Teams (one for each of the 4 corps commands). The C-Team served as the highest level headquarters. As of 1964, the US Special Forces created the mobile strike force (MIKE Force) to respond to crises. Also in 1964, the Fifth Special Forces Group (Airborne) was formed to serve as the administrative centre for the growing Special Forces activities in Vietnam. This group was headed by a full colonel.

^20.Ford, Incident at Muc Wa.

^21.Gibson, The Perfect War.

^22.Cosmas, MACV, 178.

^23.Herr, Dispatches, 47.

^24.Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam.

^25. Ibid.; Sorley, Westmoreland; Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace, 286–317; Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

^26. On the sources for the film, see Phillips, Godfather, 143–171. The character of Kurtz is based in part on Robert B. Rheault, a US Army colonel accused of murdering a South Vietnamese double agent.

^27.Hellmann, ‘Vietnam and the Hollywood Genre Film’.

^28.Marcus, ‘Journey Up the River’, 55.

^29. On the North Vietnamese home front, see Nguyen, Hanoi's War.

^30. For a subtle and penetrating look at the literature on atrocities in Vietnam, see Kulik and Zinoman, ‘Misrepresenting Atrocities’.

^31. Lt. Gen. Frank A. Camm quoted in Sorley, A Better War, 140.

^32. Ibid., 139–143; Daddis, Westmoreland's War, 94–98.

^33. The film is based on Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie.