Daddy's Bad Hair Day

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Daddy's Bad Hair Day
Ed Cable, Psy.D.
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
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Health o Meter HDC100-01 "Grow with Me" Teddy Bear Scale for Babies and Toddlers

ASIN: 1591099129
Release Date: 2004-04-23

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This rhyming story tells how things can get disrupted when Daddy has a "bad hair day."

Amazon.com

The Secret War Against Hanoi documents American covert actions in Vietnam, beginning in 1961 when John F. Kennedy decided that if Hanoi could wage a guerilla war against the South, the U.S. could do the same in the North. Dissatisfied with the CIA's initial results, Kennedy passed responsibility for covert operations to the Pentagon--which never fully supported them. For example, in an interview for this book, General Westmoreland, Commander of American forces in Vietnam, vastly underestimated the imaginative ways in which underground activities could destabilize an enemy. American covert action focused on disrupting two vital "centers of gravity": the North's own internal stability and the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran through Laos and Cambodia. Such activities ran counter to the Geneva Accords, however, and nervous diplomats placed them under severe constraints. Permission always had to be obtained from the top, which after 1964 meant an excessively cautious President Johnson, concerned that China would be goaded into intervening openly in Vietnam as it had in Korea. The creative thinking that went into America's secret exploits reads like a racy novel, from the adroit brainwashing and release of captured fishermen to the fabrication of a phantom secret society based on a 15th-century anti-Chinese hero, plus innumerable nasty booby traps. Author Richard H. Shultz has had unusual access to prominent protagonists and to thousands of classified documents made available only to him while he researched this book. The Secret War Against Hanoi clearly lays out what was achieved and what might have been achieved by covert action in Vietnam, ending with a thoughtful analysis of lessons learned for future politicians and operatives in a post-cold war world. --John Stevenson

Book Description

From 1964 to 1972, the United States executed an extremely secret campaign of covert operations against North Vietnam. Controlled by the Pentagon's Special Operations Group, under the cover name "Studies and Observation Group" (SOG), it was the United States' largest and most complex covert operation since World War II. Because it was so highly classified and politically sensitive, once the war was over the story of SOG was buried deep in the vaults of the Pentagon--until Dr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., one of the world's leading experts on SOG's activities in Southeast Asia, began his impressive investigative research and wide-ranging special interviews.

The Secret War Against Hanoi is based on thousands of pages of recently declassified top-secret SOG documents, as well as interviews with sixty officers who ran SOG's covert programs and the senior officials who directed this secret war, including Robert McNamara, Walt Rostow, Richard Helms, William Colby, William Westmoreland, and Victor Krulak. It is the first-ever definitive and comprehensive account of the covert paramilitary and espionage campaign, with many eye-opening disclosures.

Dr. Shultz reveals how in 1963, President Kennedy, dissatisfied with the CIA's ineffective guerrilla operations against North Vietnam, turned over operational control of the covert war to the Pentagon and demanded results. Despite Kennedy's strong directive, those results were slow in coming. United States policymakers and the senior military leadership had little interest in or understanding of special operations and resisted any expansion of the secret war. When SOG finally did get started in January 1964, under newly inaugurated President Johnson, it was constantly hobbled by the micro-management of the National Security Council, State Department, and Pentagon leadership.

Despite these restraints, SOG conducted its intense secret war for eight years, through the Johnson and Nixon administrations, and managed to execute a range of operations, including the dispatch of numerous spies to North Vietnam and creation of a sophisticated triple-cross deception program: psychological warfare through a fabricated guerrilla movement, manipulation of North Vietnamese POWs and kidnapped citizens, and dirty tricks; commando raids against Hanoi's coast and navy; and operations on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to kill enemy soldiers and destroy supplies. Ultimately, the Pentagon's spies, saboteurs, and secret warriors would produce both spectacular and disastrous results.

There are lessons to be learned from Washington's conduct of the secret war against Hanoi that will be valuable and valid for years to come for presidents who engage in covert special operations to meet twenty-first-century threats to vital U.S. interests.

Customer Reviews:

Snatching Defeat From Victory.......2006-07-28

Richard H. Shultz provides a well researched book to support the claim that politicians caused us to lose the Vietnam War. He describes how some SOG operations were extremely effective despite interference from Washington. This effectiveness is based on relatively recent information from the Vietnamese, not just declassified US records. The book itself is a pretty good read. Although some parts drag along, the majority of the book moves quickly.

Even though this book was published in 1999, it contains many valuable lessons that are acutely applicable to today's War on Terrorism. The Vietnam era Pentagon contained many officers who believed conventional warfare to be far superior to special operations. The book makes the argument that special operations can provide invaluable support to a conventional war, but cannot win the war by itself. Similar discussions were held prior to the recent war in Afghanistan. The military would have preferred to fight a conventional war but was forced by time constraints to send in special forces. In hind sight, the reader can compare Vietnam to Afghanistan where Special Operations not only fought a war, but won it single handedly. This bit of historical hind sight makes the book all the more disturbing. Had SOG been given a real chance, the outcome of the Vietnam War might have been different.

Specifically, the author describes how the national command authorities were afraid of success. The Pentagon and the White House were afraid that if SOG's activities were too successful, they might widen the war and draw in China. The book also illustrates the incredible lack of common sense displayed by administration officials. Numerous covert action plans were denied because they differed from overt US policy. This explanation lacks any logic. If covert action activities were in sync with overt US policy, then there is no reason to do it covertly. Covert action should be for activities that support national objectives but which cannot be disclosed openly because they may run counter to our public policy.

The book does not pull punches. The efforts of Ambassador Sullivan and Averell Harriman seem almost treasonous. They waged a bureaucratic war against the Pentagon that effectively kept SOG from doing its job. The North Vietnamese could not have had better friends.

Bottom line, this book tells a compelling tale of how senior military and political figures failed to aggressively prosecute the Vietnam War. It is a good insight into how Washington, in an effort to avoid a repeat of the Korean War, was simply afraid of being too successful. The criminal aspect of this policy is that if the Government sends the military to war, it has an obligation to at least try and win it.

The Story of the Mythical SOG.......2004-09-29

I had heard of the Studies and Observations Group as far back as the early 80s. As it the organization was so shrouded in mystery, it was hard to tell what was fact. Richard Schultz pulls the shroud away in this scholarly work and we discover the truth is stranger than fiction.

In the early 1960s, JFK directed his underlings to unleash a covert war against North Vietnam. Sort of a do to them what theyre doing to us deal. The CIA and then Defense Department create the Studies and Observations Group (SOG)and give it four primary missions. These were to insert Vietnamese spies into North Vietnam, conduct attacks on the North Vietnamese Coast, undermine North Vietnam with Psychological Warfare (Psywar), and finally to collect intelligence on and impede use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The author comes to the reasoned conclusion that SOG was a moderate failure. He shows the main factors in this failure to be timidity of policy makers to use SOG to its full potential out of a fear too much success would expand the war, indifference on the part of conventionally minded military leadership, a failure to incorporate SOG's unconventional war with the conventional war and effective North Vietnamese countermeasures.

Despite these fatal flaws, Schultz shows SOG did manage to provide some assitance to the war effort. In particular, the psywar program apparently drove the already paranoid North Vietnamese of the deep end and SOG recon teams on the Ho Chi Minh trail collected valuable intelligence and eliminate significant amounts of men and materiel.

The best part in my opinion was the portions relating to psywar. SOG went so far as to develop a fake resistance movement and left physical hints of its existence in interesting ways. Other psywar efforts included fake letters meant to implicate the Communist faithful in coup plots and exploding ammunition inserted into supply caches. Pretty cool stuff!

The only down side to the book is its kind of dry reading. By all accounts, SOG was the most highly decorated unit in US history. To his credit, Schultz touches on this but should have gone farther. There is no mention of Fred Zabitosky, Roy Benavides or Bob Howard (a man nominated three times for the Medal of Honor before finally receiving the award). Also, he does not quantify the success of the Ho Chi Minh Trail activities. The author tells us that recon team activities hurt and annoyed the North Vietnamese but there is no mention of exact tonnage of Communist equipment destroyed or the thousands of Communist soldiers tasked with patrolling the Trail because of SOG activities.

All and all a good, solid work. But sadly incomplete. To get the full picture, read this book in conjunction with John Plaster's "SOG".

Can't anyone here play this game?.......2004-08-03

It's not often that a particular work of history speaks directly to our immediate times. Richard Shultz has written a compelling account of the largest secret operation of the Cold War--the U.S. military's covert campaign against Hanoi during the Vietnam conflict. He lays out why the US military establishment and US policymakers alike were to blame for the complete failure of this secret effort. Shultz could well have subtitled the book, "How Not to Conduct Secret Warfare." Today's US warfighters confronting the Iraqi insurgency would do well to read this book.

Triple cross theology.......2002-10-03

This reads like a guidebook, sort of a secret Bible of things to do so everyone involved in global politics will think that you can do exactly what they are doing. There is an index, but it does not have a listing for triple cross thinking (covered mainly at the end of the "Going North" Chapter). The index is more helpful on the Counterinsurgency, Counterintelligence, Covert action, Covert operations, and Covert paramilitary campaign (listed topics) thinking which finally produced the triple cross operation. Without trying to explain how numerous officials in the United States were supposed to approve everything that was being done to create the kind of revolution which superpower thinking truly wanted, in their effort to make the people with power in North Vietnam think that an internal Sacred Sword of the Patriots League considered itself to be potentially more popular than the government of North Vietnam, a more recent approach to understanding this guide might consider how well this guide would work as a plan for triple cross activities, possibly including elections, elected officials, and the courts, to convince people in the United States that a Sacred Sword of the Patriots League had successfully taken over government operations in the United States of America. Specific comments in this book about the triple cross:

Could SOG create a triple-cross system to convince Hanoi that, in fact, it had uncovered only part of a much larger and more intricate subversion operation inside its borders? (p. 93).

The triple cross was not just against Hanoi but also "against our compatriots," noted the chief of OP 34, who was convinced that the STD was infiltrated by enemy intelligence. (p. 114).

"Of course, we were setting these guys up because there was no team to contact." (p. 115).

"We might also provide information about corrupt government officials who we claimed we learned about from messages sent back from agent teams inserted by us." (p. 115).

To make Project Oodles believable, different false radio messages were sent from OP 34 to each phantom team. (p. 119).

Finally, radios that sent messages out from these fake teams were air-dropped into North Vietnam. This completed the communications loop. Messages were coming in and answers were being sent out. (p. 120).

In effect, it was real evidence of spy commandos, as Hanoi referred to them. (pp. 122-3).

Finally, in November 1968, when the United States was going to have an election, MACVSOG was called by Washington, D. C., and told, "we are going to publicly say that we have no activities north of the parallel." (p. 124). Teams in North Vietnam had to get out immediately. Some people (and candidate Richard Nixon did not actually say this) were still thinking, "Just deny that you're engaged in MACVSOG operations and then crank them up. This was the way the operators saw things." (p. 126). I think about triple cross operations when I see a lot of political advertising on TV, but some of the Americans who created such operations might be engaged in other occupations today, and it would be extremely difficult to convince me that they aren't.

Turned out less well than the Peace Corps.......2001-01-04

As each book based on declassified data comes out, the story of Vietnam and the Great American Stumble there becomes more clear.

"The Secret War Against Hanoi" is particularly good in its own way. It elucidates the liberal train of thought as they were starting the war in 1961. On January 28 Kennedy had been president for 8 days. Vietnam was divided, the French were gone, and the Viet Cong were prosecuting a campaign of terrorism in the South in order to destabilize it and absorb it into the North. On that day Kennedy met with his National Security Council and listened to what was (in his view) the bad news on Vietnam: if the current conditions persisted, the South would fall to the Communists.

Why a little underdeveloped country in Asia should have been of such concern to Kennedy is anyone's guess, but what is no longer in doubt is that major American involvement in Vietnam began at that NSC meeting of Jan 28, when Kennedy stated that he wanted "guerillas to operate in the North". All that followed for 13 years was built upon that one simple sentiment expressed by the new president.

He wanted guerillas to operate in the North because, as he expressed it in April of that year, "We are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerillas by night instead of armies by day." Kennedy was intent on fighting back in kind: infiltrating, subverting, and deploying guerillas by night.

Presumably, the CIA would train Vietnamese spies and guerillas and inflict them on the North. But the Bay of Pigs fiasco happened that April, and the Kennedy brothers were convinced the fault for that lay with the CIA. Therefore they gave the job of training and inserting spies and guerillas into North Vietnam to the Pentagon, which had little experience in such operations.

There followed a string of failures, where hundreds of Vietnamese spies and saboteurs were sent up north, and never heard from again. Or North Vietnamese fishermen would be hauled off to an island and treated to an elaborate charade intended to show them that a revolt against the communist government was imminent. Shultz discusses these attempts in a dispassionate tone, but one gets a growing sense of waste and futility from the narrative. Any of the career espionage people at the CIA could have told Kennedy that it was virtually impossible to plant people in a closed totalitarian society like North Vietnam, even if, as in the case of the CIA, that's your business. But to have the Pentagon take a crack at it? Well, you might as well try to get HUD to send a rocket to the moon.

But Kennedy's obsession with and faith in covert action remained unabated till the day of his death. His cabinet, McNamara in particular, shared his enthusiasm. Eventually the Pentagon adopted the attitude that if you want anything done in Vietnam, you have to do it yourself. So covert actions began to include Americans, at the same time the overt effort began ramping up under Johnson.

The efforts were redirected toward more practical targets, such as the Ho Chi Minh Trail (the construction of which began in 1959), but the approach was no more practical. This wasn't a "real war", according to the brightest minds in Washington; it was more of a diplomatic game. Therefore, restrictions had to be placed on the units operating against the trail builders. Special forces could not go beyond 10 kilometers into "neutral" Laos. The North Vietnamese, displaying the practicality and opportunism that became their hallmark, would then route their trail 11 kilometers from the Laos-Vietnam border. Their spies, unlike those of the Pentagon, were quite effective.

It wasn't any secret that cutting off the Ho Chi Minh trail would cut off the stream of men and materiel into the South. Shultz quotes Bui Tin, the NVA officer who accepted the surrender of the South in 1975: "If Johnson had granted General Westmoreland's request to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Hanoi could not have won the war."

As simple as that. Straight from the lips of an opposing officer. In retrospect, it seems like the logical thing to do: cut off the enemy's supply line. But from its very beginning on January 28, 1961, the Vietnam War was not conducted logically.

Perhaps the Kennedy-Johnson crowd's truly wacky ambivalence can best be glimpsed on pages 34-35. Shultz relates how President Kennedy was "stunned" by the images of Buddhist monks immolating themselves in protest of the Diem government's repression. Diem's sister-in-law, who seems to have been a cross between Immelda Marcos and Leona Helmsley, referred to the immolations as "barbecues". At the same time, South Vietnamese generals were planning a coup. It was dawning on the government of the US that the government of its ally was corrupt and effete and repressive. So where did the Kennedy Administration choose to direct its energies? Toward Hanoi: "escalation of the covert war against Hanoi became a major agenda item. The decision was made to turn up the pressure on the North."

With policy like this being made by the Best and the Brightest, one can only shudder at what a catastrophe we'd have had if our leaders had been merely average.

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The Secret War Against Hanoi Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam
Shultz Richard H. Jr.
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UE6SNO

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The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam.
Jr. RICHARD H.: SHULTZ
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UCN71C

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The Secret War Against Hanoi Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam
Richard H. Jr. Schultz
Manufacturer: Harper Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0YGNI

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A great description of Zaire under Mobutu but poor investigative reporting

A good introduction but nothing more...

Well written,fascinating

Somewhat interesting, but poorly written

not as good as King Leopold's ghost, but still worth the read...

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo
Michela Wrong
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa

I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation (P.S.)

Facing the Congo: A Modern-Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness

Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone

The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912

ASIN: 0060934433
Release Date: 2002-05-28

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

During Mobutu Sese Seko's 30 years as president of Zaire (now the Congo), he managed to plunder his nation's economy and live a life of excess unparalleled in modern history. A foreign correspondent in Zaire for six years, Michela Wrong has plenty of titillating stories to tell about Mobutu's excesses, such as the Versailles-like palace he built in the jungle, or his insistence that he needed $10 million a month to live on. However, these are not the stories that most interest Wrong. Her aim is to understand all of the reasons behind the economic disintegration of the most mineral-rich country on the African continent; in so doing, she turns over the mammoth rock that was Mobutu and finds a seething underworld of parasites with names like the CIA, the World Bank and the IMF, the French and Belgian governments, mercenaries, and a host of fat cats who benefited from Mobutu's largesse and even exceeded his rapaciousness.

Wrong turns first to Belgian's King Leopold II, who instituted a brutal colonial regime in the Congo in order to extract the natural and mineral wealth for his personal gain. Mobutu, with the aid of a U.S. government determined to sabotage Soviet expansion, stepped easily into Leopold's footsteps, continuing a culture built on government-sanctioned sleaze and theft. Under the circumstances, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the people who survived in the only ways they could--teachers trading passing grades for groceries, hospitals refusing to let patients leave until they paid up, cassava patches cultivated next to the frighteningly unsafe nuclear reactor. What is less comprehensible--and rightly due for an airing--are Wrong's revelations about foreign interventions. Why, for example, did the World Bank and IMF give Mobutu $9.3 billion in aid, knowing full well that he was pocketing most of it?

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz is a brilliantly conceived and written work, sharply observant and richly described with a necessary sense of the absurd. Wrong paints a far more nuanced picture of the wily autocrat than we've seen before, and of the blatant greed and paranoia of the many players involved in the country's self-destruction. --Lesley Reed

Book Description

Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace like some modern-day reincarnation of Joseph Conrad's crazed station manager.

Michela Wrong, a correspondent who witnessed Mobutu's last days, traces the rise and fall of the idealistic young journalist who became the stereotype of an African despot. Engrossing, highly readable, and as funny as it is tragic, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz assesses the acts of the villains and the heroes in this fascinating story of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Customer Reviews:

A great description of Zaire under Mobutu but poor investigative reporting.......2007-07-16

Few nations have had as sad a history as Zaire, currently known as the Congo. Michela Wrong, a journalist for the New Statesman, has taken the time to write a book about the Congo's history particularly under Mobutu, and her experiences in the Congo during his kleptocratic rule.

Her stories are well-researched, and it's clear she's talked with many of those who influenced the history of the time. The sterile recounting of Congo's continuous deterioriation under Mobutu is quite well done. What I found infuriating about this book is that Wrong never seems to ask why things happened, or were allowed to happen.

When Zaire, for instance, became independent, it boasted all of 17 university graduates in a country the size of Western Europe, and years of Belgian investment. Surely the Belgians, who left, realized that the country would be dependent on Western knowhow for many years. Why did they not leave advisers behind, perhaps advisers with a brief to make the president offers he couldn't refuse, as happened in other francophone colonies? One of the cataclysms under Mobutu's rule was his expelling of many non-Zairians, who left their capital behind, but not their connections and understanding of their business. The economy duly crashed. Why did neither the Belgians nor the French nor the Americans dissuade him from a policy that all but destroyed Zaire's prosperity? One reason why the above mentioned powers were loath to antagonize Mobutu were the many services he performed for them during the Cold War. Why does Wrong only allude to them, and not mention them? One could continue in this vein, but I felt as if what could have become a fascinating book focusing on the crunch times when astoundingly disastrous decisions were made, instead focuses on the misery that these ill-begotten decisions wreaked, which is not as nearly interesting.

If you need to need a source for academic work on Zaire under Mobutu, you may enjoy this book, but I wouldn't recommend it as pleasure reading.

A good introduction but nothing more..........2006-12-03

`In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz' is a nice introduction to the intriguing life and times of infamous dictator Mobutu, from his rise to power to his less than glorious downfall. I advise it to anyone who is unfamiliar with Zaire-Congo. Very good reading is her account of the final collapse of the Zairian army. This book was originally conceived as a radio-program on BBC. It is however just that: an introduction. The author is so kind to refer to further reading in the last pages of the book. There the interested reader can find very good resources on the history of the Belgian Congo.

Michela Wrong does suffer from some prejudice towards Belgium and the Belgians not uncommon in the UK. Apart from King Leopold II, the role of the Belgian monarchy and the Belgian governments, especially while supporting the brutal Mobutu dictatorship is hardly present and when mentioned it is downplayed. Not a word on the part that King Baudouin and Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens played in 1959-1960, especially concerning the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. I strongly suggest The Assassination of Lumumba by Belgian journalist Ludo De Witte for a good background on that period.

The author points out that it took an American historian to dig up the facts about King Leopold II's barbarity. While the author is absolutely right in pointing out that Belgium has still not come to terms with its own colonial past, and while King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is a must read, it is NOT the first published account of that period. That honour goes to the Belgian former diplomat Jules Marchal. But even so, in 1985 he still had to use the pseudonym of A. M. Delathuy and go to the small leftwing publisher EPO (Education Prolétarienne - Proletarische Opvoeding) to get the first ever book published of a ruthless campaign that would nowadays be labelled as genocide. All big Belgian, French and Dutch publishers flatly refused it. Unfortunately this book is only available in Dutch and French, not in English.

Michela Wrong does give credit to this book, stating that it is only available in French (and Flemish if you can read it) ...Two small remarks here, there is no such thing as a Flemish language. I know that even recently a quality newspaper like The Guardian still claims that `the Flemish Belgians speak Flemish, a language related to Dutch'. The author does not have to take my word for it, she can go check any library and ask for an Flemish-English dictionary, there is no such thing. She can also come check the curriculum in any Flemish school, where she will find that students learn mathematics, geography and `Dutch' at school. While her apparently not so well informed ears may find it odd to hear that the Flemish speak Dutch while not being Dutch, maybe it will help to point out that also the Austrians speak German, that the Brazilians speak Portuguese etc ... Do the Flemish have a different accent than the Dutch? Yes; certainly, but so do Texans, Jamaicans, Australians, yet they all speak English. I also do not understand why Michela Wrong finds it necessary to give a demeaning remark ... if you can read it ... Dutch is the native language of 16 million Dutch and 6 million Flemish, that is more than all Scandinavian languages combined. Another detail that reveals her prejudice towards Belgians and Flemish is that the only Belgian politician she mentions by name is Leo Tindemans who she misspells with a typical `German' double `nn'. Of all Belgian Prime Ministers that ever played a role in Zaire-Congo, he was the least active on Zaire. Every Belgian knows about Tindemans' personal distaste for Mobutu (the feeling was mutual).

A good introduction to Mobutu indeed, a translation into French and Dutch (I can read it!) is more than welcome.

Lode Vanoost (Belgian native Dutch speaker, 7 years old in 1960, no strings attached to Congo), Brussels, 26 November 2006

Well written,fascinating.......2006-11-10

An excellent look at what has brouoght the DRC to where it is today, extremely readable.

Somewhat interesting, but poorly written.......2006-07-17

A number of the reviewers sum this up quite adequately. The is not at all scholarly and is a jumbled mess of vignettes. I give it 3 because there are so few books written on the subject and because she tried to be balanced in her reporting. This seems to be a very long winded news article with little depth and real insight. Just a mass of reporting on insignificant experiences she encountered rather than a serious recount of the history. Dissappointed and trying to slog through for any nuggets of insight. Even the brief recount of Congo/Belgium in "The Scramble for Africa" was a much better treatment of the subject, albeit solely focused on Belium's colonial period.

not as good as King Leopold's ghost, but still worth the read..........2006-01-03

After reading King Leopold's Ghost, I was looking for a good synopsis of what happened in the post-colonial era. After a few weeks of searching, I settled on In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. Both were fascinating books that give great insight on the problems with the Congo. Both are written in a style that is highly readable, entrhalling and at the same time informative.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz : Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

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In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz : Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo
Michela Wrong
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEI3TC

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IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR. KURTZ: LIVING ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER IN MOBUTU'S CONGO
Michela Wrong
Manufacturer: Perennial Books New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IWOI7G

LIVING ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER IN MOBUTUS CONGO IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR KURTZ

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LIVING ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER IN MOBUTUS CONGO IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR KURTZ

Manufacturer: Harper Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H1WVU4

Book Description

Where to Watch Birds in Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean is the sixth and latest in a series that will ultimately cover the whole world. Including many of the most alluring and rewarding birding destinations anywhere, this is the first one-volume guide to this vast region. It is the ideal port of call for steadfast birders and nature-minded wayfarers alike.

Around 430 species of birds have been recorded in the Caribbean, of which an amazing 159 are endemic. Central America has a species list of about 1,350, with some 340 endemics. This book treats over 215 individual sites in detail, covering every Central American country, Mexico, and all of the popular Caribbean islands. Detailed site accounts enable birders to maximize their chances of finding the special birds of each region, from the spectacular Resplendent Quetzal of Costa Rica's cloud forest to the threatened Imperial Parrot of Dominica. Endemic species for each site and region are listed separately, and the accounts include practical information on accommodation, transport, safety, and the timing of visits. Other interesting wildlife is also listed for each site, and numerous site maps and line drawings further enhance the text. The information presented is succinct, yet detailed enough for readers to work out their own itineraries with a minimum of time and effort.

Any binocular-equipped traveler considering a trip to the Caribbean, Central America, or Mexico will find this guide both practical and enticing while planning from home--and absolutely indispensable in the field.

Customer Reviews:

a gem addition to a birder's library.......2007-04-18

I've had this book for a few years and find myself often referring to it. I use it to look up specific birding locations mainly in Central America and Mexico but also browse it for fun reading about some of the Caribbean Islands.

For a 436 page book about a region as large and biologically diverse as Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean this is an excellent resource. As mentioned in the previous review the section on Mexico is limited (only 57 pages)but there are other good alternatives for an in-depth treatment of Mexican birding locations such as Steven Howell's excellent "A Bird-Finding Guide to Mexico" or Roland Wauer's more literary "Birder's Mexico". Additionally there are books such as Aaron Seekerak's "Travel and Site Guide to Birds of Costa Rica with side trips to Panama and Nicaragua" that can fill in the gaps of Wheatley and Brewer's book but this book is worthwhile for covering the entire region and being very detailed and informative for each site.

As an example of the books treatment of sites I chose El Salvador, a place I thought was entirely deforested and not often mentioned by birders. The chapter on El Salvador is eight pages long and lists 6 major sites and shows the locations on a country map at the beginning of the chapter. There are two pages of text describing the country, the transportation issues, accommodations, food, health and safety, climate and trip timing, conservation, bird families, bird species, and trip expectations. The site accounts follow and contain a brief description of the area, specialty birds found there (difficult to locate in other areas) endemics, and others (widespread species that are found at the site), and a paragraph on directions and access. One of the six sites (Cerro )Verde had a detailed area map. Apparently if you ever find yourself in El Salvador you can go birding.

Throughout the book, sites that refer to specific neighborhoods, roadsides, forests etc. will often be accompanied by a small detail map. A country road map would still be a necessary accompaniement to this book.

I highly recommend this book if you would like a resource to consider when trying to make a decision about a region or country to visit and then once you have decided, use this book and any other more country specific book for your trip. This book was written in 2000 so always check the internet for updated information about each country before traveling.

A good trip planning resource.......2003-06-11

This book is one of a series by Nigel Wheatley (I think that this is the only one co-authored by David Brewer) which covers many of the world's birding hotspots. All make for good reading for the traveling birder, and are especially good during the very earliest phase of trip planning - ie, choosing a destination. Considering the scope of the book, it is understandably brief and shallow, which is its greatest shortcoming. I could envision the next edition doubling in girth, and still omitting a lot! The segment on Mexico is particularly skimpy - whole regions, rich with endemic birds, are left out - such as the Acapulco/Guerrero region. On the other hand, the Lesser Antilles are treated a bit more completely. But, this book (and the series) is really the first of its kind, and every serious or casual neotropical birder will benefit from reading it.

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