It is the summer of 1945, the last and very dangerous days of World War II. The United States is working closely with the Viet Minh against the Japanese, and a team of hand-picked special operations soldiers is parachuted into Tonkin, northern Vietnam to lead these efforts on the ground...
...led by Major John Guthrie and his second-in-command, Captain Edouard Parnell, experienced officers fresh from the fighting in Europe, the Office of Strategic Services team’s mission is to work directly with Ho Chi Minh against the Japanese in the fierce contest for control of Indochina. Both officers are well experienced in resistance operations from their earlier assignments in occupied France and Belgium. Nonetheless, they have to quickly adjust to the entirely different context of Vietnamese politics in order to encourage communist operations against the Japanese. The relationship that Guthrie and the rest of the OSS team develop with the Viet Minh leadership proves to be of distinct annoyance to French ambitions to regain control of their colony, Indochina. Based on the little-known true story of American and Viet Minh collaboration in 1945, this novel challenges the later-accepted dogma of both those supporting and those opposing the American role in the Vietnam War. It notes how what is seen at a later time is often inadequate to understand what actually went on. Its contemporary relevance is simply a mirror of what is always the case in international affairs: today’s enemies can and may be tomorrow’s friends—and most importantly, the reverse is true also.
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George H. Wittman served in the US Army during and after the Korean War and, in the following decades, he became intimately involved in national security, global intelligence matters and international business. As his career developed, he undertook extensive sensitive assignments across the globe. In addition, he took over direction of the family's mining and international trade business, which as G.H. Wittman, Inc. would later undertake international security and political risk management. He served as founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy, lectured periodically at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, and had a consulting relationship with the FBI's New York field office. Along the way, he managed businesses, founded public service organizations, and wrote prolifically. He was a veteran of forty-five years of international security operations and analysis. Even in retirement, he continued to write and offer analysis on international affairs and security matters. He was a regular contributor to several publications including The American Spectator, The Washington Times, and AND Magazine. In his quieter moments, he found time to write several novels. His first, "A Matter of Intelligence" was published by Macmillan in 1975. Above all, he viewed and presented himself as an American patriot, resisting political affiliation and committed to what he believed was in the best interest of the nation.
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