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