[I entered the revolu: tionary novement partly as…]

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I entered the revolu: tionary novement partly as a result of the struggles of peasants and workers against imperialist oppression in Vietnam; in fact the struggle in Vietnam was probably the single greatest factor in my entering the revolutionary movement at all.

The history of Vietnam, at that time, in the late 1960s,, was shrouded in obscurity.

All that I knew was that, in a tiny country on 'the other side of the globe, a relative handful of people, poorly equipped and poorly armed, were beating the best equipped army the world had ever seen to a standstill.

And that that Army, the US Army, was aided by Defeated-Nixon detachments from Australia and New Zealand as well as a massively overequipped indigenous puppet army. At the time, the struggle of the Vietnamese workers and peasants caught my imagination as it likewise caught the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of other youth around the world.

In turn I gave my moral support to the struggle by turning out on massive Vietnam Solidarity Campaign demonstrations, and by arguing the case of the Vietnamese masses with my colleagues at work and elsewhere.

There seemed little else we could do. The Young Communist League and Communist Party, of which I was a member, did nothing to enlighten me.

It's only now, as d Irotskyist and with the benefit of hindsight, that I can see a way forward that could have been taken.

Nevertheless, I still view with interest anything that is published on the struggles in Vietnam, be they past or present struggles, and 1 viewed with particular interest the prospect of reading Herr's book which, at the present moment, is being so highly praised.

The strength of Herr's book turns out to be that, whilst on "active service" as a war correspondent in Vietnam, he listened to, and mingled with, the "grunts"; that is, the rank and file marines, most of them apparently conscripts.

'He even seems to have established some sort of rapport with at least some them, partly bought with whisky and canned fruit, but mostly as a result of their eagerness to tell someone, anyone; about the horrors of the war and the personal horrors they undergoing.

This is in contradistinotion to the approach of many of Mr. Herr's colleagues who were quite satisfied with the press releases dished out by the "masters of war" in Saigon.

(A parallel might here be drawn with present-day reporting of the war in the six counties of Northern The weakness of Mr. Herr's book is his whole motive for writing it, a motive which, hard as he looks for it, finally escapes him.

Employers

It is, however, a motive which isn't difficult to find and the search can profitably start with an identification of Mr. Herr's wartime employers, or, at, least, one of them.

Mr. Herr wrote not for newspapers but for magazines anor articular, he know, is a "soft por. Peope most peope mag It's designed for voyeurs, as are àll magazines, (as opposed to "journals" and guides of one sort or another).

It's designed to be flicked through and to titiliate and, in this case, Mr. Herr provides titillation both for himself, through his "daring" exploits in Vietnam and his reckless way of life, and for others through reportage of them. (The titillation is presented as "serious content" in order to justify the magazine. Playboy plays the same game.)

The difficulty is that Mr. Herr is uneasy about this. The "grunts" he talks to are unwilling victims of American imperialism, whilst Mr, Herr is a very willing tool of it.

In the end Mr. Herr quits Vietnam, unable to live with the love/hate relationship he has with what he is doing.

But, "stateside", boredom sets in, and Mr. Herr yearns to be titillated again. As a substitute we get these memoirs.

Mr. Herr wasn't of course alone. i • According to Dispatches, Vietnam was lousy with photographers and journalists of Mr. Herr's ilk.

The tragedy is that not all of these people were without talent. Their talents could have been undoubtedly better used in the struggle to force a US withdrawal and build a socialist society.

Substitutes

This in its turn could have been a step along the road to building a socialist society, the precursor of the communist society "where voyeurism and titillation are seen for what they arepoor and worthless substitutes for a real and substantial life.

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