Review Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988. 861 pp. $24.95. "He had finally bent the truth about the war," writes Neil Sheehan of John Paul Vann, "as he bent other and lesser truths in the past." Sheehan's flawed hero is not only the focal point of his exhaustive study, but also a metaphor of the American endeavor in Vietnam, because Vann's dedication, courage, and self-sacrifice along with his opportunism, duplicity, and arrogance were traits of America at war in Southeast Asia as well. Encyclopedic in scope, A Bright Shining Lie is not limited to a biography of Vann, for it includes both American and Vietnamese history, offers an exposé of corrupt Saigon regimes, indicts American military and civilian leaders, and serves as a memoir of its author as a journalist covering the war. Dozens of incisive portraits of major figures ofthat era—allied military personnel, statesmen, politicians, and journalists together with noteworthy enemies—dot Sheehan's pages, reinforcing their rich texture. A common thread uniting the various strands in Sheehan's work is ironically suggested by William Westmoreland, who spoke of the fondness of his predecessor, Paul Harkins, for a Kipling verse: The end of the fight is a tombstone white with the names of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."1 Kipling's epitaph is appropriate for John Paul Vann, and, Sheehan implies, for most of his superiors too, since all were duped by the East. The optimism of post-World War II America may, in part, explain why those who attempted to hustle the East were, in turn, fooled. Because of what Sheehan calls the "disease of victory," the possibility of defeat was excluded from the mindset of American military leaders. "They assumed that they would prevail in Vietnam simply because of who they were"; consequently all reports concerning the battlefield were implicitly " 'progress reports.' " This contagion of victory created the salient characteristics of senior military leadership, namely, "professional arrogance, lack of imagination , and moral and intellectual insensitivity." Given this mentality, a victorious North Vietnamese/Viet Cong enemy—victors over the Japanese and French by adhering to a martial heritage of defying the odds—could be referred to by General Paul Harkins as " 'those raggedy-ass little bastards.' " In Sheehan's lengthy account, Americans knew neither their enemies in North Vietnam nor their allies in the south. REVIEW 89 Vann, too, shared in this ignorance and arrogance, for despite his many years in country , he chose to know little of the Vietnamese, their history, or their culture. As with many of his countrymen in Vietnam, Vann's compassion for the South Vietnamese was usually superseded by his attempts to manipulate, to dominate. Vann's desire for complete control had its roots in his childhood. Although he chose the following epitaph for his dead mother: " 'Myrtle Lee Vann . . . Beloved Mother of John, Dorothy, Frank & Gene,' " it was one example of the many bright shining lies in John Vann's life. His mother was neither beloved, nor did she love her illegitimate son John. A part-time prostitute who focused her affection on herself, Myrtle spent her earnings on jewelry, makeup, clothing, and whiskey, rather than share them with her poverty-stricken family. She humiliated both her husband and her children with her promiscuity. Myrtle was particularly cruel to her son John, for she "would not let him escape the disgrace of his birth," even refusing his adoption by her husband Frank Vann until the young man was nearly eighteen. According to Sheehan, Myrtle's emotional abuse of her child created in him an overwhelming sense of insecurity: "The boy who had to prove himself that he had the courage of the male by feats of daring was the man who had to keep assuring himself of his masculinity by a neverending marathon of seduction." A later friendship with a homosexual minister had a similar effect. Vann's skill as an adolescent at gymnastics was a way of "releasing some of the rage that Myrtle built up in him." This release easily transformed itself...