Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam

by Frank Snepp

Overview

Widely regarded as a classic on the Vietnam War, Decent Interval provides a scathing critique of the CIA’s role in and final departure from that conflict. Still the most detailed and respected account of America’s final days in Vietnam, the book was written at great risk and ultimately at great sacrifice by an author who believed in the CIA’s cause but was disillusioned by the agency’s treacherous withdrawal, leaving thousands of Vietnamese allies to the mercy of an angry enemy. A quarter-century later, it remains a riveting and powerful testament to one of the darkest episodes in American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700620654
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	08/15/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	616
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Frank Snepp spent eight years in the CIA, five of them in Vietnam as interrogator, agent debriefer, and chief CIA strategy analyst in the Saigon embassy. A constitutional scholar and freelance writer, he currently works as an investigative reporter and producer for cable television.

Table of Contents

Foreword, Gloria Emerson

Preface to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Principle Cast of Characters

Part 1: First Rites

Homecoming

A Great Day

In Good Faith

Leaves from a Pocket Notebook

Son of Cease-Fire

Martin’s Embassy

Nibblers and Anti-Nibblers

Fiscal Whores

Part 2: The Unraveling

Improvisatory Offensive

A Thousand Cuts

Hail-Fellow

Pyrrhic Victories

Blossoming Lotus

Light at the Top

Glass Mountain

Black Box

Cannonball to Papa Lima

Ides of March

Piece of My Tongue

Part 3: Collapse

Primary Responsibility

Limp Little Rags

The Bombing

Spotlighting

Eagle Pull

Discarded Luxury

Worst Case

Controlled Conditions

Panic Button

A Bargain Whose Day Has Passed

Secret Caller

Polarized Thinking

High-Class Chauffeur

Our Turn

They’re in the Halls

Morning

Afternoon

Evening

Postscript: Internal Hemorrhaging

CIA’s Official Recommendation for Honor and Merit Award for Frank Snepp

Index

Editorial Reviews

"A great service to everyone’s understanding of what happened in Vietnam in the spring of 1975. . . . Other accounts of that time will have to be measured against what Snepp, from his unique and highly informed vantage point, has produced."—Kevin Buckley, New York Times Book Review

"By far the richest document yet produced on the American and South Vietnamese end game."—Laurence Stern, Washington Post Book World

"An astonishing book. . . . Brilliantly argued and elegantly written."—Seymour Hersh, Los Angeles Times

"Replete with important disclosures. Provides the most detailed account to date of the operations of the CIA inside South Vietnam, as well as giving a first-hand account of high-level disagreements between Washington and Saigon over the use and integrity of intelligence."—New York Times

"Vigorous, gripping, novelistic in its evocation of mood, setting, and character."—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"Important revelations. The incredible history of the American role in Vietnam would have been forever poorer without Snepp’s perspective."—Boston Globe

"Those who read the book will shudder anew at the tragedy, confusion, and gross incompetence Snepp lays bare."—John Barkham Reviews


"The value of Snepp's book is that it teaches us, in an absorbing and brilliant manner, where the mistakes were made in the CIA and in the highest ranks of officials. . . . Even the most ardent critics of the war could not have ever guessed what Snepp the [CIA] insider has revealed."—Gloria Emerson, winner of the National Book Award for Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War

From the Publisher - EBOOK COMMENTARY

The value of Snepp's book is that it teaches us, in an absorbing and brilliant manner, where the mistakes were made in the CIA and in the highest ranks of officials. . . . Even the most ardent critics of the war could not have ever guessed what Snepp the [CIA] insider has revealed.

Gloria Emerson

A great service to everyone’s understanding of what happened in Vietnam in the spring of 1975. . . . Other accounts of that time will have to be measured against what Snepp, from his unique and highly informed vantage point, has produced.”—Kevin Buckley, New York Times Book Review

“By far the richest document yet produced on the American and South Vietnamese end game.”—Laurence Stern, Washington Post Book World

“An astonishing book. . . . Brilliantly argued and elegantly written.”—Seymour Hersh, Los Angeles Times

“Replete with important disclosures. Provides the most detailed account to date of the operations of the CIA inside South Vietnam, as well as giving a first-hand account of high-level disagreements between Washington and Saigon over the use and integrity of intelligence.”—New York Times

“Vigorous, gripping, novelistic in its evocation of mood, setting, and character.”—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

“Important revelations. The incredible history of the American role in Vietnam would have been forever poorer without Snepp’s perspective.”—Boston Globe

“Those who read the book will shudder anew at the tragedy, confusion, and gross incompetence Snepp lays bare.”—John Barkham Reviews

“The value of Snepp’s book is that it teaches us, in an absorbing and brilliant manner, where the mistakes were made in the CIA and in the highest ranks of officials. . . . Even the most ardent critics of the war could not have ever guessed what Snepp the [CIA] insider has revealed.”—Gloria Emerson, winner of the National Book Award for Winners and Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from a Long War

From the Publisher