New Left Review I/36, March-April 1966

Douglas Gill

Common Men in Vietnam

Since the author has been four years in Vietnam for ap, Malcolm Browne’s The New Face of War might be a book of substance. [1] Malcolm Browne, The New Face of War. Bobbs-Merill, New York 1965. The outlook is engaging: ‘Vietnam’, he says; ‘is a beautiful and sometimes noble little country, which I have come to love. As a citizen of the Free World, I hope the challenge represented by Vietnam is met. But beyond this, in a very personal sense, I hope Vietnam itself pulls through. Its people deserve something better than what they have had for all too long.’ This is the limit of his feeling: a deeply-rooted, if diffuse and ill-assimilated, acceptance of American policy, and a trite distaste for what is being done. It also marks the limit of his comprehension, as we shall shortly see.

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